Naked City

Just when it seemed things couldn't get any more contentious up in Georgetown, Mayor MaryEllen Kersch and Mayor Pro Tem Clark Lyda have kicked up the heat another notch. Last month, they lashed out at citizens who turned in two petitions at City Hall. One calls for a referendum on a development ordinance passed during a questionable emergency council session on July 30, which severely limits commercial development in the city. The other is aimed at recalling Kersch and several other council members, including Lyda. Georgetown resident Mike Henry, former president of the Churchill Farms neighborhood group, started the petition drive, and says more than 1,300 residents signed each of the petitions.

The movement apparently enraged Kersch and Lyda. They've challenged Henry and a small group of other residents -- including Austin Police Assoc. President Mike Sheffield -- to a debate regarding petitioners' claims of council malfeasance. Henry has consistently refused the offer, and at Georgetown's Sept. 25 council meeting suggested that not only is the challenge improper, but that the time window for debating the ordinance has passed. When his three minutes were up, Kersch and Lyda lashed out at Henry, spending the next 12 minutes verbally attacking him from the dais. Questions Henry and others have raised about council actions are "obnoxious," "scurrilous," and "an insult to the citizens of Georgetown and to the political process," Kersch said.

Her contention that the referendum and recall processes are "anathema to the civil democratic process" are odd at best, especially considering she once wrote a book titled How to Fight City Hall. Kersch also told the Austin American-Statesman that the petitions were a "blasphemy on democracy," and that organizers "should be ashamed of themselves."

Two days after the Sept. 25 meeting, Georgetown threw out the referendum petition, claiming that petitioners hadn't collected enough valid signatures. The city has chosen to interpret the city charter's language to mean the referendum requires signatures of 15% of registered voters, versus 15% of voters who actually voted in the last election (a much smaller number). "We have attorneys looking at [that decision] and they are giving us advice," said Henry. "But it looks like we may have to take them to court."

As for the recall petition, the city charter lays out the requirements fairly plainly: Collected signatures must equal 30% of voters from the last election, which would be about 760. The charter does not specify that signatories must be broken down by district. However, "Even if [city officials] come back and say that we need [the signatures] in each [council] district, we could easily get that," Henry says. The city has until Oct. 13 to review the recall petition.