STURGIS – A faction of Sturgis citizens has failed to submit a petition to refer recent Sturgis City Council action to a vote.
The 20-day referendum period has expired, and the Sturgis City Council Resolution 2023-20 becomes effective today, March 21, 2023. The resolution authorizes the Sturgis Administrative Services Director to recruit the next Sturgis city manager.
Some in the community believed that the issue of hiring a Sturgis city manager was a decision citizens should vote on.
State law doesn’t allow a city council to call an election on the issue.
Sturgis City Council member Preston Williams said he heard from multiple Sturgis residents who wanted the city council to call a special election on the question of employing a city manager.
“I explained to them that as a council, we are not allowed by law to set a special election on the matter,” Williams said.
While under no legal requirement to do so, the Sturgis City Council passed Resolution 2023-20 with the intent of opening the discussion as to which executive officer the city would recruit. With passage of the resolution, the council provided a path forward for city manager opponents to organize a referendum and force an election on whether
the city should continue operating with a city manager, or shift to a system characterized by a strong mayor with a city administrator.
Sturgis city manager opponents have pushed a campaign beginning around November 2021 to remove the city manager position including filing two unsuccessful court actions which are currently being appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court.
In a news release on Feb. 22, local Sturgis resident and attorney Eric Davis announced an effort to refer Resolution 2023-20 to a vote of the residents of Sturgis.
Davis said: “The city should not be taking any action on this matter until the lawsuits regarding the petitions are resolved. This vote is going to determine the future of Sturgis. It is a question of critical importance in this community, and it needs to be answered by its citizens. We’re going to have a vigorous, informed, and respectful debate; and then we are going to have an election.”
The petitioners needed just 254 valid signatures from registered voters who are also residents of the city to force an election. The number represents 5% of the 5,080 registered voters who reside in Sturgis. As of the 6 p.m., Monday, March 20 deadline, the Sturgis Finance office had not received a petition.
Had the petition been filed with the City Finance Office, the finance officer would have had to verify the signatures on the petition and if valid, submit the referendum at the next municipal election or general election. The Finance Officer at the direction of the Sturgis City Council also could have scheduled a special election.
Sturgis Mayor Mark Carstensen said the city passed the resolution knowing that a referendum was a possibility and wanted to extend the opportunity of referendum to citizens of Sturgis.
“We had hoped that we could have had a healthy civic discussion on the merits of whether or not the city of Sturgis should have a city manager,” the mayor said.
