CHARTER REFORM HITS SNAG : SIGNATURE CHECK DOESN'T END DISPUTE.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

In a setback for Mayor Richard Riordan's effort to qualify a charter reform initiative for the April ballot, City Clerk Mike Carey said Friday that he might have to call for a full check of all 304,000 signatures.

The problem, Carey said, is that a random sample of the petitions yielded enough signatures to qualify for the ballot - but only if the relatively small number of signatures collected by noncity residents is counted.

Under the City Charter, only signatures collected by city residents can be counted.

Supporters of the ballot measure say they are sure they have enough signatures collected by city residents to meet the requirement of 197,000 valid signatures to qualify.

But all the signatures could not be counted by Monday, a deadline to get the measure on the April 8 municipal ballot, when the mayor and eight City Council members will be up for re-election.

Initiative backers say that the legal wrinkle should not stall the initiative effort because state law allows noncity residents to collectthe signatures for a charter reform commission.

But they acknowledged that the problem threatens to open the door for the City Council, which has appointed its own charter reform commission, to inject politics into the equation.

Studio City attorney David Fleming, the initiative drive chairman, while asserting that he is not disappointed by the latest legal problem, voiced frustration that the initiative is facing obstacles from the city.

``You have a city government today so afraid of letting citizens suggest reforms that they will do anything and go to any extreme they can to protect their turf,'' he said.

However, City Councilman Nate Holden blamed the backers of the initiative for not being careful to draft and circulate the petitions, predicting that the courts will keep it off the ballot because of its flaws.

``That (initiative) will never see the light of day,'' Holden said.

Councilman Joel Wachs - the only council member to support the initiative - said the city should abide by whatever law is appropriate in certifying the petitions, but felt that the measure should be approved for the ballot.

``Absolutely we should put it on the ballot,'' Wachs said. ``To not do so would be flaunting the will of 300,000 citizens who signed these petitions.

``Eventually, these are going to be certified. We should go along with the will of the people.''

State law says that signatures collected by nonresidents are allowed for initiative drives, and City Attorney James Hahn has ruled that the county registrar of voters, who was hired to conduct the random count certification, could rule that such signatures are acceptable.

However, Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Conny B. McCormack has refused to make the decision, saying she is just a contractor counting the petitions for the city, and has thrown the political hot potato back into Carey's lap.

Now the decision rests with Carey, who said Friday that he would meet privately with Hahn to get some advice before making it.

If the decision is forced on him, Carey - who was appointed to his post by the mayor - said he would be constrained to follow city rules and precedents, which would require him to invalidate signatures collected by nonresidents.

``I would deduct (them) based on past practice and city law,'' he said. ``If it's under city law and based on past practices, we would deduct the signatures collected by nonresidents.''

Fleming said the issue may end up in court, because the random sample had more than enough valid signatures to qualify if state law is used to settle the nonresident issue.

To qualify in the random sample, the registrar had to have found that 71.2 percent, or 6,511 of the 9,141 signatures checked, were those of registered voters of the city.

The registrar found that 6,852 or 74.9 percent of the signatures checked were verified as those of registered city voters.

However, the registrar found that 419 of the valid signatures appear to be on petitions circulated by people who were not registered voters in the city.

If those signatures are disqualified, then only 6,433, or 70.3 percent, of the signatures are valid and the random check fails to qualify the measure by less than 1 percentage point, Carey said. It would be 78 signatures short.

If city law is followed, Carey said he believes he would have to throw out signatures collected by nonresidents.

``The rules are clear. They have to live in the city to circulate the petitions,'' Holden said.

He welcomed the possible delay of the ballot measure, saying it would give the City Council's charter reform commission more time to establish its own effort.

Fleming and Riordan already are due in court Tuesday to ask a federal judge to force the City Council to place the measure on the April 1997 ballot if it qualifies. Their suit also asks the judge to allow the election of a charter reform commission to take place by council district, rather than at-large, to avoid conflicts with the federal Voting Rights Act.

The City Council voted last month to ask the court to dismiss the mayor's lawsuit on the grounds that the initiative has not qualified, so the court cannot yet rule on putting the measure on the ballot and how the election would be conducted.

If the initiative does qualify for the ballot, the voters would be able to approve an elected charter reform commission to put the changes directly before the electorate.

Fleming said the measure would clearly qualify if all the signatures were counted. It needs just 64.8 percent of those turned in to be valid - much lower than the standard required by the random count method.

But he said he is not giving up hope on the measure qualifying through the random count.

``State law says you don't have to have solicitors who are city residents,'' Fleming said.

He explained that the creation of elected charter reform commissions is governed by state law, so he believes that state law governing initiative drives should apply.