Pullman City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to rerun two bonds from the Nov. 7 ballot in a special election in February.
The City Council held an executive session preceding its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday night to discuss the legal risks the city would face if it had voted to move forward with the bonds. With some county officials questioning the validity of the bonds' passage, the city determined it would be safer from a legal standpoint to simply place the bonds on a special election ballot in February.
"My advice was take the least risky approach and just run the ballot again," Pullman City Attorney Laura McAloon said.
Proposition 1 requested $10.5 million in general obligation bonds to purchase and convert the Encounter Ministries campus into a new city hall, construct a new event center and to acquire a location for a third fire station, while Proposition 2 was a $2.4 million bond for maintaining Pullman's parks and paths.
The embattled bonds enjoyed some popularity at the polls, receiving more than the 60 percent approval required, but seemed to fail validation when they fell short of the mandatory 40 percent voter turnout. City officials determined in late November, however, that state law allowed for a second method of passage when voter turnout was low.
"When you have a proposition that has less than 40 percent turnout of voters voting on the proposition, then you apply an alternative test that says it still passes if you have 'yes' folks that are equal to 60 percent of that 40 percent number," McAloon said Nov. 28.
Following the city's declaration that the bonds passed validation, county officials began voicing their doubts as to whether using this alternative test is appropriate in this instance.
"How the city can read this as passing is beyond me, but it's up to them," County Prosecutor Denis Tracy said in an email to colleagues earlier this month.
McAloon said she is still of the opinion that the bonds met their legal requirements, but without support from the county it is difficult to move forward. When the city issues bonds, she said, it's her role as bond counsel to offer what is called an "unqualified opinion."
"Unqualified means that every other lawyer in every court would agree with you in your conclusion," McAloon said. "What I've been presented with in the last couple of days is evidence to the contrary."
McAloon said choosing to run the bonds on a new ballot shields the city from potential legal battles with voters who may contest their passage.
For the bonds to pass validation in February's special election, McAloon said, they must still have over 60 percent approval and turnout must exceed 1,550 voters.
"That turnout number is roughly half of the number that voted in favor of the propositions just this past November," McAloon said.
