The Lucas County Board of Elections has ended the months-long debate over Toledo’s other citizen-led ballot initiative from 2018 by doing the same for the proposed Lake Erie Bill of Rights as it did for the Keep the Jail Downtown Toledo’s initiative a month ago.
Both will be on a special city election Feb. 26.
By a 3-0 vote, the board placed the Lake Erie initiative on the ballot. Board member Joshua Hughes, a Democrat, made the motion, but only after announcing it “pains” him to do so because he still believes the proposal is “on its face unconstitutional and unenforceable.”
VIDEO: Markie Miller, Toledoans for Safe Water
Republican David Karmol, who was running the hearing in place of fellow Republican Bruce Saferin, the board chairman, echoed comments made by Mr. Hughes.
“I think it is beyond enforcement and laws of the city of Toledo,” Mr. Karmol said. “I join with the remarks of Mr. Hughes, but will vote for it.”
Besides Mr. Hughes and Mr. Karmol, the other board member, Democrat Brenda Hill, voted to put the measure before voters. The board, which had previously voted in opposition, ultimately agreed at the advice of its attorney that it should follow the latest Ohio Supreme Court decision and let the courts sort out the matter later.
Before the vote, the board heard arguments from attorneys on both sides of the issue over a last-minute challenge over the constitutionality. Of two decisions cited, the more recent was used as a basis for reversing an earlier decision and putting the Keep the Jail Downtown Toledo initiative on the ballot. In both cases, voters will be asked to cast ballots on proposed city charter amendments drawn up by city officials in response to the controversy.
About 30 people observed the 90-minute hearing and subsequent decision.
Markie Miller, an organizer with Toledoans for Safe Water, the group behind the proposed Lake Erie Bill of Rights, said she’s excited the group has “at least passed this hurdle.”
“We don’t expect it to be easy. But we went into this challenge knowing we would have to work for it,” she said. “We’re ready to keep going as far as we can.”
She said she understands why Mr. Hughes and Mr. Karmol were frustrated by developments that led to the reversal, but said it was “unprofessional, for sure” for the two of them to come out so strongly on the merits of her group’s proposal while grudgingly agreeing it has to go on the ballot.
“If you want to vote ‘no,’ then vote ‘no.’ But don’t keep everyone else from voting,” Ms. Miller said.
While saying she was “prepared for some of these obstacles,” she also said she was surprised by how much resistance the measure got from the board.
“It shouldn’t have been this difficult. It shouldn’t have been this much of a challenge,” Ms. Miller said. “It should not have come to people feeling like they were not recognized and were silenced.”
The elections board validated 6,438 of some 10,000 signatures Toledoans for Safe Water submitted before the deadline. The number validated exceeded what was required to get the measure on the ballot by 1,200 signatures.
Similarly, it validated 7,764 of the 10,583 signatures Keep the Jail in Downtown Toledo submitted. In both cases, 5,244 signatures from registered voters were needed.
The Lake Erie group’s ballot proposal calls for a vote to amend the Toledo City Charter in a way that declares the Lake Erie watershed has legal rights to “exist and flourish.”
The Lake Erie Bill of Rights proposes the world’s 11th largest body of water be given rights as an ecosystem that citizens would be legally entitled to defend.
Toledoans for Safe Water has said the group’s ballot initiative was drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has worked with communities in at least 10 states to enact what are known as “rights to nature” laws.
The national legal-defense fund, based in Mercersburg, Pa., also does work in Nepal, India, Cameroon, Colombia, Australia, and other countries.
Much like another local group — Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie — Toledoans for Safe Water was created in response to the region’s 2014 water crisis. It had about 40 volunteers collecting signatures from registered Toledo voters the past two years.
First Published December 20, 2018, 7:37 p.m.
