Ballot props could change future elections, give Yuma mayor additional year

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - On the November ballot, residents of the City of Yuma will vote to decide if elections will continue to fall on an odd year or follow a new Arizona state law, mandating all elections to be held on even-numbered years.

For those who have lived in Yuma for a while, traditionally, city elections are held in odd-numbered years.

These two props could change future elections.

If proposition 412 is passed, Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls and three other council-members would stay in office until 2022.

That’s an extra year. 

A citizen’s committee was assembled and following that, the city council submitted an ordinance allowing prop 412 and 413 on this year’s ballot.

Dave Nash is the public affairs coordinator for the city.

“As a charter city, we have different guidelines that then we would have if we were just running under state statutes,” Nash said.

“The purpose of this is to make sure that there's compliance. Somebody looks in and says, you know, hey, why does it say odd-numbered years in your charter and you're holding an election in even-numbered years, aren't you violating your charter. So, we want to avoid that conflict,” he explained.

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Proposition 413 also matching with state laws.

“The state has also passed a law saying that laws that cities have on the books are passed that don't comply with state laws can cause us to possibly lose state shared revenues.”

A ‘yes’ vote means primary and general elections dates would change and also -

“formalizes the number of days when a petition can be circulated,” Nash added.

As far as a no vote, the city will follow how other cities have gone through.

“We do know that there has been some dissent in other cities in the state about when you know who should be able to have the right to tell them when to hold their own elections. So we would kind of sort of look to their experience to see where to go from there,” Nash said.

The city says voters should remember the main theme of these propositions which is having the City of Yuma laws match up to current Arizona laws.