WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH — Several Wrightsville Beach residents argue recent legislative changes limit citizens’ ability to influence policy by increasing the number of signatures needed to introduce town petitions.
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State law allows municipalities to use citizen petitions to introduce changes to town ordinances or put a new initiative on a ballot.
Wrightsville Beach previously required 35% of its residents who voted in the last election to sign petitions. 851 voters participated in the 2023 election, making roughly 300 signatures necessary to introduce a town ordinance.
A recent state law amended the requirement to 35% of registered voters who reside in Wrightsville Beach only. This equals a much higher number at 2,263 registered voters, making almost 800 signatures necessary for a petition to pass; additionally, some residents argued a significant number of registered voters aren’t year-round residents and don’t participate in elections.
“I understand the town was concerned that it was too easy to get a referendum on the ballot,” former Wrightsville Beach mayor David Cignotti told Port City Daily. “But I think they overstepped in making it so difficult. The way I look at it, basic math tells me we’ll probably never have a referendum at this beach.”
Former town manager Tim Owens mentioned former mayoral candidate Henry Temple’s 2022 petition to allow elevator encroachments — a proposal the planning board and aldermen pushed back against — before recommending a higher threshold for signatures at the February 2023 aldermen meeting.
“The people vote you into these seats and you have to make tough decisions,” town attorney Brian Edes said. “It should be a pretty significant threshold to be able to override you on development regulation text amendments or anything.”
Aldermen unanimously agreed to request Rep. Ted Davis Jr. (R-New Hanover) propose a bill amending petition requirements in the town’s charter in February 2023. Owens, Edes, and the aldermen agreed the number of required signatures for petitions was too low.
“People elect the board every two years rolling and if they don’t like what they’re getting, they make changes then,” Alderman Ken Dull said at the meeting. “But to usurp what we’re trying to do for the good of the community in the interim doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you have a threshold.”
At the 2023 meeting, Alderman Hank Miller noted Davis’ role introducing a similar bill in 2016 to increase the number of signatures required in Wilmington’s petition process. It once required 25% of voters in the most recent municipal election until HB 1083 changed it to 25% of registered voters in the city.
Weeks after the Wrightsville Beach aldermen meeting, Davis and Rep. Charles Miller (R-Brunswick) introduced HB 242 to require signatures to be higher, at 40% of WB’s registered voters for ordinance petitions. The bill passed the House Local Government and Rules Committees but did not move forward in the Senate.
However, a similar provision was included in another bill introduced by Miller earlier this year. HB 1064 requires 35% of registered Wrightsville Beach voters for the town to consider resident petitions; Gov. Roy Cooper signed it into law on June 26.
“It effectively removed a right for Wrightsville Beach citizens,” Henry Temple, who competed against mayor Darryl Mills in the November 2023 race, said.
Temple noted the new law requires a petition to be considered when 792 voters sign it — that’s more than any votes an alderman candidate received in the November 2023 election.
“It’s troublesome, particularly at Wrightsville Beach, because so many are not really full-time over there, even though they’re registered,” Wrightsville Beach Museum of History President Jan Brewington said. “It’s really the voters who are most engaged.”
According to former Wrightsville Beach Mayor David Cignotti, the petitions and referendums allow voters more of a voice.
“You don’t want them all the time,” he said, “but they should be an option. I’m not pointing figures but there are boards sometimes that don’t listen to citizens.”
Cignotti — who served from 2009 to 2013 — credited the petition process for enacting a smoking ban on Wrightsville Beach in 2012. He said it prompted hefty feedback and likely the largest crowd he saw at a board meeting.
“Everybody was for it — maybe a half-dozen people against it,” Cignotti said, noting the alderman still voted against it 3-2. “Then people figured out they could try to get signatures and have a referendum — and they did — and it passed with two thirds of votes.”
Cignotti cited another example of voters coming out on top due to a petition: the 2012 citizen referendum, which blocked the construction of a Wilmington baseball stadium to go where Live Oak Bank Pavilion is now located.
He also mentioned the 2021 sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
“I’ve got to think if that had been a referendum issue for the county, in all likelihood, they wouldn’t have sold that hospital,” Cignotti said.
PCD reached out to the aldermen, town manager Tony Wilson, Rep. Davis, and Rep. Miller to ask about resident concerns with the petition but only received a response from Miller, who referred questions to Davis.
According to State Board of Elections records, several aldermen have given support to Davis’ campaign throughout his career; Dull has donated $4,500, Miller has contributed $2,750, Mills has given $1,150, and Zeke Partin has donated $1,100.
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