Many of them criticized it – some of them vigorously – but the majority of Eau Claire City Council members nonetheless voted Tuesday evening to put a Confluence Project-related referendum on the April 1 city ballot. The referendum won’t explicitly deal with the proposed public-private project; instead, it will ask citizens whether or not they should have to give approval any time the city wants to spend $1 million or more on a performing arts building. If it passes, a second referendum would be held on whether or not the city can spend $5 million on the project, an amount the City Council already pledged in October.

 Before the final 9-1 vote to go forward with a referendum, council members held a lengthy, tangled discussion about the wording and the legality of the proposed referendum, which was initiated via a petition drive led by Confluence critics. Eventually, the majority of council members begrudgingly accepted the fact that they had little recourse other than allowing the initiative to go before voters.

“I will do everything I can to fight its passage in April, because I served (in the military) to protect us from this kind of bad law.” – City Councilman Eric Larsen

 “I will do everything I can to fight its passage in April, because I served (in the military) to protect us from this kind of bad law,” said City Councilman Eric Larsen, responding to a prior comment by Councilwoman Monica Lewis that Americans had fought and died for their right to such self-government. Before the meeting, Larsen distributed a statement to the media condemning the “proposed ordinance as divisive and fundamentally unfair” because it singles out only arts-related facilities and not other projects – such as those involving sports or recreation – that the city might fund in the future.

 The referendum, if it passes, would alter the city’s charter ordinance, essentially amending the local constitution. Unless it were repealed at some point in the future, it would require a referendum whenever the city wanted to spend more than $1 million on any art-related facility, including the Confluence Project. It will read as follows:

Shall a charter ordinance be enacted that would require a binding referendum before $1,000,000 or more in city funds can be expended on any building construction that is planned for dramatic, musical, or artistic performances?

 City Councilwoman Catherine Emmanuelle criticized Confluence opponents who have “systematically manufactured the appearances of a divided community.” She expressed confidence that city voters will reject the referendum, which she termed an “oppositional scheme to retroactively undo the (city’s) modest pledge towards the Confluence.” The $5 million pledge toward the roughly $50 million performing arts center would be funded through a tax incremental financing (TIF) district, which would create no increased tax burden for city taxpayers.

 The performing arts center, which would be shared by UW-Eau Claire and community arts groups, is one element of the $77.2 million Confluence Project; the other would be a privately funded building combining student housing and commercial space. The Confluence Project would be built on the west side of South Barstow Street on a block of mostly vacant buildings.

 Several council members, however, voted in favor of the referendum for positive reasons, saying citizens deserved to have input on such spending decisions. “I’m going to be happy that this goes to ballot, but I think it’s sad that some people say that they hope it can be defeated in court,” Lewis said, alluding to earlier comments by Emmanuelle that advocated testing the measure’s legality if it passes.

 Likewise, while he expressed reservations about the far-reaching impact the referendum could have on future projects, Councilman Dave Duax voted in favor. “In the end the people rule, and we have to yield to what they want,” he said.

 The only dissenting vote was cast by Councilman Dave Klinkhammer, who said he couldn’t in good conscience vote to bring the referendum forward. “My objection is that it is bad law,” he said. “It is confusion. It is not accurate. If it was a vote about the Confluence ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ it would make sense. That’s not what this referendum’s about, but that’s the way it was explained.” Klinkhammer noted that on Monday, some of the people who circulated referendum petitions testified to the council that they had explained to citizens that the

potential referendum would be about the Confluence Project, not that it would impact other future projects, too. “They did not understand any more than the people who were signing it understood what they were signing,” he said.

 Earlier in the meeting, on a 6-4 vote, the council rejected a motion to directly adopt the proposed charter ordinance. Had they approved the motion, the measure would have become official after 60 days, and a referendum directly on the Confluence Project pledge would have followed.

 Eau Claire County voters will also face a Confluence-related referendum on April 1, but the question will be more straightforward, asking simply if the county should contributed $3.5 million toward the project.