Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey gives Certification of Sufficiency 

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

Another milestone has been reached for the citizens associated with a grassroots movement trying to change the way the city of Vancouver makes major changes to its roadways.

Save Vancouver Streets turned in thousands of signatures as part of the initiative process, looking to get its proposal on a future ballot. SVS wants the city to have to go to the vote of the people any time it wants to remove current vehicle traffic lanes.

On Friday, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey certified that Save Vancouver Streets did gather more than the required valid signatures.

This initiative process came in response to several areas in Vancouver having streets with two lanes each way changed to one lane as part of the city’s Complete Streets project. There are several other areas with planned Complete Streets renovations. SVS wants the people to decide if those projects are to proceed.

“Lots of time and hard work by many to make this happen,” Justin Wood, one of the leaders of Save Vancouver Streets, posted on his Facebook page on Friday.

On Monday morning, Wood told Clark County Today that SVS is still feeling good about this victory. While always confident SVS had enough signatures, it was still a challenge. He noted that there are so many people who live in the region who have a Vancouver address but don’t actually live in the city limits. 

Because of this, SVS turned in more than 6,500 signatures when only a bit more than 4,200 signatures were required.

The auditor’s office stopped counting after it reached 4,475 valid signatures. 

In its Certification of Sufficiency, the auditor noted that its office received a petition signed by registered voters in the city of Vancouver regarding Street and Development Standards. The highlights of the certificate:

1. To be considered a sufficient petition, a total of 4,270 signatures must be valid, which is 15 percent of the votes cast at the last municipal general election held in November 2023. 
2. The submitted petition contained 6,572 signatures.
3. Records on file show that 4,475 signatures have been marked as valid. After reaching the number of valid signatures required to be sufficient, we stopped the review process.

“Therefore, due to the fact the petition contained more than required 4,270 valid signatures of registered voters from the City of Vancouver, I hereby declare the petition as sufficient, Kimsey wrote.

The petition was then sent on to the City of Vancouver.

Wood said the city has several options from here.

The city could adopt the proposal as is, but Wood doubts that will happen.

The city could hold a hearing on the proposal. Wood said he is hopeful this will happen, so colleagues from Save Vancouver Streets can have their say in front of the city council.

The city could legally challenge the proposal.

Wood said that would cost money on both sides, but Save Vancouver Streets has had assurances from supporters that it would help pay to fight any legal challenge.

Save Vancouver Streets wants its proposal to go to the ballot box.

“Not much else we can do at this point, other than get people to testify if there is a hearing or get ready to litigate,” Wood said.

The Save Vancouver Streets project has made a tremendous amount of progress since its origins at the end of 2023 and early into 2024. Clark County Today was invited to a meeting last winter: https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/community-members-rally-in-hopes-of-saving-mcgillivray-boulevard/

In November, SVS turned in those 6,500 or so signatures: https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/signatures-delivered-to-city-hall-from-save-vancouver-streets-campaign/