No Call for Alcohol

Supporters of Sunday package sales in Paulding County won’t be pouring a drink today in celebration.

had been slated to consider at this afternoon’s business session . But board members learned at their morning work session that state regulations would prevent them from putting the issue in front of voters this year. The issue, therefore, will not be taken up during commissioners’ 2 p.m. meeting.

“I know it was your intention today to at least consider adopting a resolution to place that question on the November ballot,” County Administrator Michael Jones told commissioners. “Unfortunately, as we prepared that ballot question and submitted it to the Department of Justice, we found a new wrinkle in state law.”

That wrinkle, Jones said, changed the lead time needed when submitting a ballot question for DOJ officials’ review from 60 days to 90 days prior to an election. That stipulation will keep county leaders from placing the Sunday sales referendum on the ballot for the Nov. 6 general election.

“We’ve not had a ballot question placed on a ballot since this law took effect 18 months ago, so we found out that the new rule was 90 days. I was unaware of that, I apologize for that,” Jones said. “They did offer us a provision that would allow it to be considered in November, but it was a very, very convoluted approach, very complicated and very expensive to do that.

“Essentially, you’d have to hold two separate elections at the same time with duplicate staff, duplicate ballots, duplicate voting machines, and during a very, very  busy presidential election cycle,” he added.

Jones said that should commissioners consider putting the issue in front of voters next year, the referendum could appear on the ballot of a special called election in March or during November’s general election. Either election, he said, would incur some expense on the county since all of its voting precincts would not normally be in operation at those times.

“In March, you’d have to open up all 14 precincts and you’d have to allow early voting a week prior. If you did it in November, two of the precincts would already be open—one for Hiram, one for Dallas for their municipal elections—you’d have to open up the balance of those as well as early voting. The next opportunity to do it where there would be the least expense would be July 2014, which would be the normal primary election cycle.”

Return to Dallas-Hiram Patch for more coverage of today’s Paulding County Board of Commissioners meetings.

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