ALAMOSA — Petitions to place marijuana questions on the Alamosa ballot this fall are insufficient, Alamosa City Clerk Holly Martinez told the city council Wednesday night.

However, she said petition gatherers have until August 2 to provide additional valid signatures.

Lead petition gatherer Shanna Hobbs had turned in 403 signatures seeking to place a question on the ballot permitting medical marijuana facilities in the city limits and 418 signatures to place a ballot question to allow retail marijuana facilities in the city limits. She needed 212 valid signatures for both issues.

“I have finished going through those and verifying signatures, and both are insufficient,” Martinez told the city council.

Martinez approved 156 valid signatures on the medical petition and 153 on the retail petition, she said. To move forward to the ballot, both of those numbers must be brought up to 212 signatures, verified and validated by Martinez.

“She still does have time to provide the remaining amount,” Martinez said.

She explained that petition gatherers have 15 days from the date she notified them of the deficiencies, which would make the deadline August 2.

Martinez explained that petition gatherers could turn in new signatures and/or go back to petition signers whose signatures were incomplete and have them sign a new petition form correctly.

She said petitions were invalidated for several reasons: addresses were out of the city limits (a number fell in this category, some even being from out-of-state residents); signatures were incomplete in some manner, such as not including the person’s address; or the signer was not registered or registered at a different address than provided.

Martinez said she sent Hobbs copies of the petitions so she would understand why some signatures were not valid, and Hobbs is welcome to go back to those people who were disqualified because they did not show complete addresses (but would have otherwise qualified) and ask them to sign a new petition form.

When Hobbs turned in the signatures to the city clerk, she said she planned to continue collecting signatures in case some of those originally submitted were not valid.

If petition gatherers submit enough replacement or corrected signatures by the August 2 deadline, and Martinez verifies a sufficient number of signatures as valid, the ballot measures will go before Alamosa city voters this fall.

Also on the ballot will be city council positions for the mayor, Ward 2, Ward 4 and at large. So far announcing for mayor are current Mayor Josef Lucero, Councilman Ty Coleman and Dan McCann. Announcing so far for Ward 2 are current Councilor Kristina Daniel and David Broyles; and for Ward 4 current Councilor Michael Stefano. No one has yet formally announced to run for the at-large seat currently held by Councilor Jan Vigil.

However, there is still time to announce candidacy. Candidates must be U.S. citizens, at least 21 years old, qualified electors of the City of Alamosa for at least one year prior to the election and if they are running for a specific ward seat must live in that ward.

A candidate orientation session will be held Monday, August 7, at 6 p.m. in city council chambers, 300 Hunt Avenue, Alamosa. Potential candidates and anyone curious about running for council should attend this session.

Petitions may be circulated from August 8 through August 24. Completed petitions must be submitted to the city clerk no later than 5 p.m. on August 24. 

For more information contact the city clerk’s office at (719) 589-2593 ext. 8; 300 Hunt Avenue; or [email protected].

The November 7 coordinated election will be conducted by mail-out ballot.