As reported last week in an article entitled “Turf Valley referendum halted after review of signatures” by Derek Simmonsen in The Columbia Flier, the petition drive to overturn CB58 has been put in limbo. For those of you just now joining the conversation, CB58 basically allows the developer of Town Square at Turf Valley to include a 55,000 square foot grocery store in the development as opposed to an 18,000 square foot grocery store allowed under the previous zoning. It is widely assumed that the larger grocery store will be Harris Teeter.
Harris Teeter is a non union grocery store. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has launched an all out campaign to keep Harris Teeter and another non union store, Wegmans, from encroaching on the union stores turf (pun intended) in Howard County. Union members were instrumental in helping Marc Normans group, Howard County Citizens for Open Government, gather the requisite 5,000 signatures on a petition to put CB58 up to referendum. Judging from my own experience, they reached this benchmark by subterfuge.
It now appears that the petition takers failed to take proper measures when they secured signatures for their petition.
“Voters now must sign their names on the petition form using the exact name that is on their voter registration; variations on a name will no longer be accepted”
That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Apparently it was problematic for Marc Norman.
“Norman said his own signature on the petition form may be invalid because he did not use his middle name, which is part of his voter registration.”
Geez, you would think a guy would be a little more diligent with his own petition.
Happy Snapper Mating
5 hours ago
