SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO-AM) The petition drive to get the new Sioux Falls city administration building on the ballot has been rejected, essentially on a technicality.
City Clerk Tom Greco tells KELO Radio that the biggest reason is that the thousands of petition signatures were submitted by the Stop the Funding Campaign on the wrong form.
"Well, I wouldn't call it a technicality," says Greco, "to me, it's the law and that's what the decision was based on." Greco says activist Bruce Danielson could have asked his office for the proper forms. Greco says he's not sure where the petition drive got its forms.
The Stop the Funding Campaign spent weeks gathering signatures, including at drive-thru petition drives at the 300 Building downtown, to make it super easy for citizens to affix their signatures. They wanted voters to decide the fate of the $22 million building, to be built across from the city's main library.
At the time of the writing of this story, KELO Radio News was unable to get in touch with Danielson for comment, but he told the Argus Leader that he was frustrated that the city didn't tell him the forms were wrong when he first registered the petitions with the clerk's office.