Fairhope votes ‘No’

Change of government referendum fails

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In a double-digit margin, Fairhope voters said ‘No’ to a ballot choice that would have changed the city’s form of government.

Long lines and waits of up to an hour and thirty minutes greeted referendum voters but more than 6,000 of them persevered to make their votes count.

The citizen-driven campaign to move to a council-city manager form of government was defeated with 58 percent of Fairhope voters choosing no change.

Chuck Zunk, spokesperson for the Fresh Start Fairhope campaign that gathered over 800 signatures to trigger the election, said their team was disappointed but would continue to move forward.

“We’re disappointed because we thought we could win,” Zunk said. “What we’re going to do right now is try to understand the reasons why we didn’t win and do some analysis to see what we’re going to do in the future to do this further. Our view of what happened yesterday us that it’s a bump in the road and not a dead end.”

Gary Thorson, leader of the Forever Fairhope group that opposed the change in government, said he and others were pleased with the result.

“This was the right result for Fairhope at this point in time,” Thorson said. “The people have spoken and they want to continue the form of government we have now.”

The potential government change would have also led to a move into district representation for the city, with three council members elected in districts and one at-large. The change would have also made the mayor the permanent head of the council and give that office a vote as the fifth council member.