Tuesday night at the County Center, the Hillsborough County Charter Review Board voted to put a referendum on the ballot in the Nov. 4 election repealing an amendment that gave veto powers to a county mayor.

As CL wrote ab out in out still on the newsstands issue, the battle to allow county voters the chance to weigh in on a county mayor has been a battle that's last over four years now.

In 2008, after a long court challenge, the county mayor was knocked off the ballot, but a companion proposal, giving the county mayor veto power, stayed on the ballot, and actually won.

But Charter Review members, all selected by county commissioners who have never warmed to the county mayor, over the past two meetings showed nothing but disdain for the arguments made by Mary Ann Stiles, the leader of the county mayor movement.

The only member to vote against against putting the veto power measure on the ballot was Joe Robinson.

"The voters have already spoken," said board member Joseph Robinson, who opposes repealing the veto powers. "You're doing a disservice by talking about eliminating it.

Am I the only guy who thinks there's some merit to what Mr. Robinson said? It might indicate that if the "regular" county mayor proposal was on the ballot, it's not a stretch to believe it would have been successful.

But that was then. With just a couple of weeks before the deadline to have 40,000 signatures in tow, it's looking increasingly doubtful that Stiles and her crew will be able to muster the sufficient number of legal signatures to qualify for the November ballot. And perhaps it will never reach the voters. Stiles told CL that if she is unsuccessful this year, she will definitely come back again, though that might not be until 2014.

The argument from the review board has been that it clutters up the Charter, and that's why it should be gone. But who's it bothering by sitting there? Go back to the 2000 presidential election when judges had to decide how to verify pregnant chads and the like. What was the criteria? The will of the voter.

You don't have to like the county mayor proposal to acknowledge that an unusual set of circumstances forced it off the ballot in 2008. And if it had been on the ballot and lost, this discussion would be somewhat irrelevant.

But the veto provision was on the ballot, and was approved by Hillsborough voters. What's the harm in keeping it on the charter until the electorate makes a final decision on the county mayor position, one way or another?

This article appears in Jul 15-21, 2010.