UNANIMOUS: COUNCIL PUTS QUESTION OF ZONE REPRESENTATION BEFORE VOTERS

The Cape Girardeau City Council Tuesday unanimously approved placing on the Nov. 3 election ballot the issue of whether to switch from at-large council elections to zone representation.

There was no discussion by council members on the ordinance to place the issue prompted by a citywide petition drive on the ballot.

Lawrence Godfrey, who unsuccessfully ran for city council this year, spearheaded the petition drive that secured more than 1,700 signatures enough to force a city vote on whether to change the City Charter to provide for zone representation.

Godfrey said Tuesday he is pleased voters will be able to decide the matter. He said he believes zone representation is "more democratic" than at-large council members.

Godfrey also said more diverse candidates are likely to seek office if they only have to campaign within their relatively small zone.

"I think with zone representation you've got more door-to-door campaigning," he said.

Godfrey said that this year Councilman Melvin Gateley proved that type of campaigning wins votes. Gateley was the top vote-getter in the spring council election.

"Because he's retired he had the time to meet people and find out what's on their mind," Godfrey said. "But I don't think that happens very often with at-large elections.

"It's been more economics whoever has more money is able to run for council."

Godfrey said he also hopes zone representation would inspire more citizens to register to vote

and participate in local politics.

"I think what you have with zones are council members who are more receptive to their constituents," he said. "And the people who vote for them generally know them.

"One of the disappointing things we found while circulating the petition was the number of people who are not even registered because they think they can't change government. Hopefully, this will help change that and get more people involved in local government."

Although the issue will go to a vote of the people, whether the outcome of the measure is constitutional remains to be seen. City Attorney Warren Wells said there are several legal issues that need to be resolved before zone representation could be implemented.

Wells said the zones outlined in the measure might fail to provide equal representation throughout the city. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that such zones must have nearly the same number of people of voting age in order to assure equal representation on the council.

The city attorney also said that if some zones are under-represented on the council, it could open the city to civil rights liability.

Wells said that if voters approve the measure, the legal concerns will have to be resolved by additional charter amendments, litigation or both.

"We'll just have to deal with that when it comes," he said.

Godfrey said that although the legal questions eventually will need to be answered, the important issue is that voters have an opportunity now to choose zone representation.

"A lot of those other questions will have to be answered, but we're getting the issue before the voters, and that's what we were trying to do," he said. "As long as it's zone representation, we don't have a problem with re-evaluating the boundaries.

"We basically tried to separate them by population, but now I see we need to separate them by 18-year-olds eligible to register. That's a little tougher for us to do on our own."

Godfrey said he doesn't now how the issue will fare in the November election. He said supporters of zone representation plan to conduct public debates on the matter.

"The people support the idea, so it will depend on what information we can provide to the voters and getting the numbers out to the polling booths," he said.

"I think debate is good. It gets it before the people, and the more populace involved, the better informed their decision will be."