Voters weighed in on non-binding referendum questions in Linwood and Northfield Nov. 8. Now it’s up to the city councils in both towns to decide whether to follow through on those wishes.
In Linwood, preliminary totals say that voters said no to a plan to spend $2.6 million to install a turf field and replace the lights at All Wars Memorial Park.
The referendum total, which is not yet official, has the question rejected by a close vote of 1,376 yes and 1,404 no.
When Linwood City Council met Nov. 9, the day after the vote, there was a large contingent from the public showing their support for the project. In addition, members of council said they back the project.
Expect an even larger turnout when council meets again. The election results become official Monday, Nov. 21, the day before the next scheduled council meeting.
Tim Donovan, city director of parks, put a lot of work into the turf field proposal.
“There’s a lot of push from people in town that want to see it and for council to step up and make a decision and approve it anyway,” said Donovan, noting that every council member is on record supporting the turf field. “If you’re going to upset half the people anyway, then do what in your heart you feel is the right thing to do.”
In Northfield, unofficial totals say voters approve of the city issuing three licenses for the sale of cannabis and three for the delivery by those same retailers. The vote was 1,079 yes, and 872 no. The cannabis business was touted as a source of new sales tax revenue of up to 2 percent.
Whether the City Council will execute the wishes of the voters is an open question as council has already rejected cannabis sales, and council’s biggest cannabis advocate, Paul Utts, was voted out of office.
With a margin of just 200 votes, Mayor Erland Chau said it’s hard to draw definitive conclusions from the results until all mail-in and provisional votes are counted.
“It might be too preliminary at this point because we don’t have provisional votes in and the early mail-in ballots,” he told Shore Local News. “It does not seem like an overwhelming consensus.”
– James FitzPatrick
