On the fast track to the ballot box

www.STOP2006.org , the organizational arm of Bill Napoli’s effort to stabilize property tax assessments certainly has an interesting cast of players who are working on the effort behind the scenes. They also seem to have a strong sense of hustle.

In her Rapid City Journal column this week, Celeste Calvitto reported on the petition drive, which only started collecting petition signatures recently.

STOP signatures at 20,000

State Sen. Bill Napoli, R-Rapid City, says he has about 20,000 signatures on petitions to get his property tax assessment initiative on the November 2006 ballot. He needs 35,000 signatures by November to get the proposed constitutional amendment before the voters next year but hopes to get a lot more as a cushion.

"People understand and are willing to sign the petition. It is just a matter of logistics. One signature at a time takes time," Napoli said. "We have an awesome team of volunteers who are working their hearts out."

The Stabilize Taxes On Property, or STOP, organization wants a maximum 3 percent assessment cap on all property in South Dakota. They have a Web site: www.STOP2006.org.

The ballot measure was filed with the secretary of state’s office on February 14th, and really only has made a public push in the past couple of months. And they already have 20,000 signatures. Dang. I’m impressed. Sometimes these ballot initiatives come off haphazardly, and hardly get out of the gate before they peter out.

Why is this one going to be a serious contender? Bill Napoli makes an effective communicator for the effort. You also need to look at who’s involved in this besides Bill. From the STOP2006 website, look at some of the others who are involved in this....

Democratic State Senator Jim Hundstad;
Former GOP State Representative Bob Weber;
Republican State Representative Charles Turbiville;
Republican State Senator Jerry Apa;
long time Republican Activist Bill Trent;
Republican State Representative Art Fryslie;

And several dozen other people.

I suspect Jim Hundstad and Bill Napoli are about as far apart on many issues as is possible. Jim not only has supported an income tax in the past, he’s proposed an “intangible income tax” on more than one occasion. Bill's a hardcore conservative Republican (as if you didn't know that already).

Regardless, the ideological disagreement I have with Jim’s views are not the point of all this. What got my attention is that on this "ballot initiative team,"you have a couple of the more conservative personalities in the Legislature, coupled with a somewhat agrarian credentials and background of Bob Weber and Jim Hundstad.

This sounds eerily like coalition building to me. Too many of these measures go into it and fizzle out because they can't come up with the names on the paper. And that takes legwork. This team in it's early stages is already starting to organize on a county by county basis.

I think that in getting over 20,000 signatures at this point - with over three months left to go - you'd better get used to hearing about this measure. Because at this rate, I think it's a sure bet that we're going to be voting on it in November 2006.