City council ignores Webb City voters, rejects smoking ban anyway
Updated: Apr 12, 2011 5:55 PM CDT
By Jordan Aubey, Reporter
WEBB CITY, MISSOURI - The mayor of Webb City, Missouri says his city council is not properly representing a key issue proposed by residents.
In last week's election 12% of registered voters in Webb City showed up to the polls, with 54% of those approving a proposed city wide anti-smoking ordinance.
But city council has the final say and last night, differing on whether it was a true majority vote, they rejected the proposal ending a debate that's been going on for months.
"If it had been that hot of an issue with voters I think we would've had a bigger turnout to say, 'oh yes, we want this passed, we're going to go out and vote for it' - it didn't," says Webb City Councilman Jerry Fisher.
"Twelve percent was two percent higher than last April's election and four percent higher than the year before that," says Mayor John Biggs. "Twelve percent in Webb City was almost double the county-wide turnout and they had elections in Joplin with school board and so forth."
The anti-smoking issue first went before the city council in September. Council members voted down the measure 5 to 3.
Councilman Fisher was one of those against the proposition.
Another vote was taken to allow residents to decide the issue. At the time some council members were eager to let the public have its say, including Fisher.
"I have no problem with putting it on the ballot," Fisher told us this past September. "If the majority of Webb City residents want to vote for that, then I'll support that."
But despite a win at the polls Fisher again denied the ordinance's passage.
"He changed his mind, so that's the reason for the outcome," says Mayor Biggs.
"I didn't realize, and I don't think too many others on the council realized was, I thought (the election) would be the end of it, that if the voters approved it we would have a smoking ban, even though we had not really seen the actual ordinance," Fisher told us Tuesday.
The ordinance was published in the newspaper and also available on the city's website.
Fisher says council members reviewed the ordinance Monday. He says he did not understand how the city would enforce the ban. He says he is also against the government intruding on people's lives.
Mayor Biggs says city council, in effect, "did it's own thing."
"They obviously believed the public was not well enough informed or that their opinion was better than the public's opinion," Mayor Biggs says.
NOTE: Since other issues were also on the ballot there was no cost to the taxpayer of putting the anti-smoking proposition on last weeks vote.
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