Proposal to move Sarasota City Commission elections to go to referendum

SARASOTA — A five-month campaign to move Sarasota’s spring City Commission elections to the fall has acquired enough signatures for a referendum to be placed on the ballot this fall.

Decide the Date, as the campaign is known, launched a petition in December that obtained 4,732 signatures —  996 more than the required 3,736 signatures needed to put the issue before voters in November. The referendum will ask voters whether they support moving city elections, including primaries and, if needed, runoffs, from March and May of odd years to August and November of even years.

That would cause City Commission elections to coincide with federal, state, county and district elections, something that advocates say will increase voter turnout and save money.

“City elections currently take place in March and May of odd-numbered years when no other elections are held. A great majority of Sarasota residents don’t know when to vote,” Suzanne Atwell, former Sarasota mayor and co-chair of Decide the Date, said in a news release.

Voter turnout for the spring elections has historically ranged anywhere from 15 to 23 percent, compared with 50 to 70 percent in November general elections — something that advocates stress. But critics of the move say that City Commission elections will get lost in the more crowded ballots.

By not holding separate city elections, the campaign also estimates that around $100,000 could be saved per election.

The cost of special elections has long been a hot-button topic among those in Sarasota.

In October 2017, state legislators wrote a letter urging the Sarasota County School Board to change the language of its local-option property tax referendum so that voters would see future extensions of the referendum on November ballots as opposed to March.

The idea has met a lot of resistance over the years, and the City Commission has not agreed to pursue a change.

Last fall Sarasota City Commissioner Hagen Brody pushed the item onto the City Commission agenda, resurrecting the issue after it had been rejected 18 months earlier, when then-Commissioner Atwell’s motion to begin the process of moving the election date did not receive a second, quashing the issue before it could get to a full vote. Brody's effort, too, was rejected in a 3-2 commission vote.

Brody received the most votes ever in a Sarasota city election when he was elected in May 2017, but even that consisted of about 6,400 votes in a 23 percent voter turnout.

Opponents argue the change would minimize city races, reducing them to a smaller role on the ballot when coupled with higher-profile state and national races, as well as county-wide elections. They say that this may cause city issues to take a backseat while potentially driving up campaign costs as city candidates struggle to attract notice.

The Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections has officially validated the petition. The city charter required that the petition be turned in to the Supervisor of Elections within six months, a mandate that Decide the Date met with a month to spare.

The city clerk will present the validation to the City Commission so that the matter can be set for a public hearing to adopt an ordinance that would set the election date for the referendum.

Supporters of the campaign have included the Sarasota NAACP, the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, the Sarasota Chapter of the ACLU and the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee among others.

Decide the Date is also co-chaired by Larry Eger, the public defender for the 12th Judicial Circuit.

“Voter turnout for spring city elections is notoriously abysmal,” Eger said in a statement. “Having surpassed the required number of signatures by such a large margin in so little time speaks to the popularity of giving Sarasota voters a choice as to when they want to hold their elections.

“We look forward to voters deciding this issue this November,” he said.