The Connection

Citizens lined up after a long night to argue for or against changing the town’s charter.

The proposal to change aspects of the town election was discussed during its third public hearing at Herndon Town Council’s Nov. 25 meeting.

“I look forward to hearing more comments,” said councilmember Grace Wolf.

She noted that the heavily advertised four public hearings on the proposed changes to give the town council four year staggered elections and move the May elections to November are unprecedented.

The proposal also states that the vice mayor will be decided by the town council every two years.

According to Town Attorney Richard Kaufman, the bill will go into effect next July if both the town and General Assembly approve the proposal. Since there will be no election in May, the next town election will be held in November 2016. This would give the town council a 6 month extension, granted by the General Assembly, to their term.

He said the town council has the option to divide the proposal into three parts to help some of the measures pass.

Several residents came forward to tell the town council they agreed with moving the elections to November.

“I think that moving the vote to November has so many more positives than negatives that I really think it’s a non-question,” said Signe Friedrichs.

She said moving the elections would encourage more people to vote and that about 80 percent of eligible voters showed up during the last presidential election. She noted that 40 percent of voters came to the town election the following May.

“More participation is always good,” she said.

Eric Boll agreed, saying during the public hearing that scattered election lead to lower voter turnout.

Larry Cohen said changing the election cycle could lead to a number of other changes, like more minority representation in the town council. He noted that Ferguson’s council has an April election cycle.

“There’s an example of the worst case scenario of a failure of politics because of an off-cycle election,” he said.

Coucilmember David Kirby made a motion that he wanted to separate the proposal into three parts, but Vice Mayor Jennifer Baker - filling in for absent Mayor Lisa Merkel, stated the council is already looking into doing so for the Dec. 9 public hearing and vote.

Councilmember Jasbinder Singh commented about statements he has heard during the past three public hearings.

“I’d like to comment about those stating that partisanship is not an issue,” he said. “Partisanship is in fact an issue.”

Baker did not state her stance on the proposal, but did say that out of the past May 11 elections, there were a possibility of 77 new councilmembers if every position was changed. However, 23 of those positions were incumbents.

“I’m just listing data,” she said. “You could decide your own analysis on that.”

The next public hearing on the proposal will be at 7 p.m. Dec. 9 in the Council Chambers. The town Council will decide whether to approve the proposal after the public hearing session.

For more information, visit https://www.herndon-va.gov/Content/Government/Town_Council/town_elections/default.aspx?cnlid=1347.