The “Whereas” Statements and the 2021 Hughes Ballot Measure

There has been a lot of focus on the “land uses” in the Ordinance langue for Hughes Open Space. However, EQUALLY important are the WHEREAS statements in the Ordinance, even though these informative clauses are receiving little to no attention.

WHEREAS statements typically appear at the beginning of an Ordinance. These important clauses provide background information, reasoning, legislative intent for the full Ordinance, and often describe the salient issues and concerns that brought about the legislation, providing context and justification for the enforceable part of the Ordinance. WHEREAS clauses are just as important as the enforceable clauses of the legislation.

We have asked Healthy Democracy (the consultant) and the City staff to provide the full Ordinance with the WHEREAS statements to the Community Guides, Information Committee, Civic Assembly delegates, and the broader public in this outreach process, but they have refused our requests. They have said that they only want to focus on the very short paragraph summary that appeared on the ballot in 2021. Limiting information to the small ballot summary leaves out a whole lot of important information that is contained in the full citizen Ordinance on Hughes, including and especially the crucial WHEREAS statements that provide context, justification, and legislative intent for the conservation-focused Hughes open

It is unclear how having more information rather than less is a bad thing in a truly democratic outreach process.

Make sure when reading the Ordinance language, you also focus on the WHEREAS statements.

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