Petition

This page will give you all of the information you need to make an informed decision about the question that will be on the ballot November 2, 2021 due to the petition efforts.

View The full text of the proposed ordinance here.

What is this Petition / Ballot Question About?
Emergency Management is a function of the state and the county. In most cases, it is not within the scope of a City’s authority to manage and respond to declared emergencies. By their own admission, the City of Salina does not have a disaster agency and cannot declare an emergency. In 2020, the State of Kansas left a decision of mask mandates up to individual counties. At the time, Saline County chose not to enact one. Certain people on the Salina City commission did not agree with this decision, so they passed an ordinance requiring masks instead. The county then felt forced to pass one of their own to maintain consistency and avoid confusion. Due to recent changes in state law, Counties have limitations and rules to follow when responding to any emergency. Some of these rules have a focus on preserving individual liberty. The City of Salina basically side-stepped these rules by enacting an ordinance using what is called “Home Rule” authority under the Kansas constitution. This is the same authority that allows them to enact any general ordinance, such as park curfews, etc. The Kansas Emergency Management Act clearly intends for Counties, not Cities to respond to emergencies and defines a framework for that. By using Home Rule authority, the City of Salina Commission was side-stepping those rules to impose their own view on the city. This petition / ordinance is an attempt to prevent something like that from happening again. In the interest of uniformity and reducing confusion, we don’t need multiple local government entities trying to manage emergencies.

Why would I want to vote “Yes” on the ballot to enact this ordinance?
Voting “Yes” on the ballot question will enact the ordinance and prevent the City of Salina from infringing on individual liberties and the operation of local business in response to an emergency. For the sake of consistency and to avoid confusion, we do not need too many different entities trying to do the same thing. It is solely the role of Saline County to respond to local emergencies and there are rules in the Kansas Emergency Management Act that they must follow when doing so.

What is the current status of this effort?
Signatures were gathered according to the Kansas laws on initiative and referendum petitions. Based on the law, we needed 1632 valid signatures from registered voters living within the city limits. That number represents 25% of the people who voted in the last City election. We collected about 2,150 signatures and the County Election Officer validated the signatures. They will only count signatures until they are a few signatures past the required number, so they stopped counting/validating at 1662. Once the petition was submitted to the City of Salina, by state law, they had 20 days to either pass the ordinance or put it on the ballot for the public to decide. None of the City Commissioners voted to pass the ordinance. On August 23, 2021, the Salina City Commission voted 3/2 to put the ordinance on the ballot, but they also voted to ask the Saline County District Court to rule on the validity of the ordinance. Commissioners Mike Hoppock, Karl Ryan and Trent Davis voted in favor of putting the petition question on the ballot. Mayor Melissa Hodges and Commissioner Aaron Peck voted “Nay”.

On August 27, 2021, the City of Salina’s attorneys filed the lawsuit in Saline County District Court challenging the validity of the petition. A case management conference is scheduled for September 13, 2021.

On September 9, 2021, we filed a Motion to Dismiss the City’s lawsuit.

On September 8, 2021, the City of Salina filed a 61 page Motion For Summary Judgement.

On September 15, 2021, the City responded to our Motion to Dismiss.

On September 29, 2021, we filed a response the the City’s Motion for Summary Judgement.

The hearing on the Motion to Dismiss is scheduled for October 1, 2021 at 1:30 pm and the hearing on the Motion for Summary Judgement is scheduled for October 11, 2021 at 1:30 pm.

The ordinance passed by a margin of 14 percentage points in the November 2, 2021 election.

On November 17, 2021, the court entered a temporary injunction preventing the ordinance from having effect. The court was specific in stating that this was not an indication of whether the issue had any merit, but was simply to ease time pressure so that the matter could be heard thoroughly.

Are you concerned about the City challenging the ordinance in District Court?
The City’s primary argument is that the ordinance is a violation of “their” Home Rule authority. We disagree and hope that the court will agree with us that Home Rule ultimately belongs to the citizens and the city commissioners are there to represent us and not rule over us. As the Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents of our great country states: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed“.

If this ordinance is passed, will it prevent the City of Salina from dealing with emergencies?
All this ordinance does is prevents the City from using an emergency declaration to impose restrictions on businesses and individuals that infringe on freedom and individual liberty. This does not prevent them from acting in any other way that is otherwise lawful. They can still, for example: accept and disburse disaster relief funds, issue permits, clean up debris (from a tornado, for example), and follow directives from Saline County Emergency Management and any other action necessary and within the bounds of existing law.