City Government
G.C. Bike Ban Lifted By Voters
November 7, 2012 
Garden City voters passed one of the two initiatives on the Tuesday ballot, prompting the bicycling advocates to issue the following press release.
Attorney T. J. Angstman said, “The passage of Initiative B renders the bike ban in Garden City void, effective immediately”, as it states that the People of Garden City ‘believe that all forms of non-motorized transportation should be allowed on all portions of the Garden City Greenbelt system’ along the river. The Initiative further states that restrictions on non-motorized traffic on the greenbelt, such as
the bike ban, are “void and of no effect unless such restrictions are ratified by a majority of the citizens of Garden City in a properly conducted referendum vote.”
Now that Initiative B has passed, Garden City must remove the signage indicating that bicycles are banned on this section of the greenbelt. If the City intends to overturn the voters’ decision to lift the bike ban a referendum must be held, either at a special election or the next general election. It is now time for the Garden City Council and Mayor to accept their obligations to the public as it relates to this path, including acknowledgment by the City that the cost of making the path “safe” has nothing to do with bicycles and that paving is not necessary to make the
path “safe”.
But the DAILY PAPER quotes the mayor with a different twist.
“Whether or not people understood all the minutiae of these initiatives, the point is they rejected the appeal of the ban (on bicycles),” Garden City Mayor John Evans said Wednesday.
“Not only did they endorse the status quo, but they don’t want the status quo changed unless they change it,” he said, referring to the passage of Initiative B.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Nov 8, 2012, 9:43 am
I have to wonder why they wrote the initiatives the way they did. It almost seems as if they did it to obfuscate the issues. If that’s true.. they aren’t any better than the City. If it’s not true.. they need to get new lawyers. The old ones didn’t anticipate this outcome, and should have. Either way, I don’t think you can base policy on what you think the voters meant to do. Only on what they actuall did.
Nov 8, 2012, 11:04 am
As we speak right now, legislators right here at home are figuring out ways to spend the Prop 1, 2, and 3 money just for those purposes. Nobody ever seems to care that the people they elect, because they are the same religion, don’t pay attention to elections, or to polls. The insanity has not ended, and the fact that Mr. Luna will not budge, nor teach a class, not one, speaks volumes. Since he became king, 62 additional items of work have been added to the teacher’s duties, and yet, we never see him leading the charge. Get in touch with your representatives. They are in the process of screwing you.
Nov 8, 2012, 11:25 am
A majority of Garden City’s voters want to keep the Riverside Village path closed to cyclists. (Although it should be noted that 43% wanted it opened.)
Even though I wish it would be opened – and have worked with the COG group toward that end – I feel it would be “underhanded” to use the wording of the initiatives to get it opened.
But – on the other hand – King John Evans has used slimy, underhanded tactics from the beginning:
1) He represented the land as being private property, until the State of Idaho sued him. (Being the developer of the property, he knew all along!)
2) With the cooperation of his Council toadies, he enacted a law to ban cyclists from that stretch, when he had to take down his private property signs.
3) He falsely represented that the entire path would have to be paved, at a cost of $1+ million to the taxpayers, in order to lift the bicycle ban.
Evans should be ashamed. (If he had any shame.) So should the Greenbelt-going speeding bike riders who don’t exercise any courtesy, and generate hostility. YOU are a large part of this whole mess! (And yes, I know there are just as many discourteous pedestrians, dog-walkers, skaters, etc. But they don’t scare the other greenbelt-goers as much as you do.)
My 2 cents.
Nov 8, 2012, 11:58 am
Bikeboy.. spot on. I contributed too, mostly because I don’t like being lied to by the Mayor. I also voted Yes on both.
Nov 8, 2012, 12:26 pm
The votes haven’t been canvassed by the County. The path is not open immediately.
Nov 8, 2012, 12:58 pm
What does Diane’s comment have to do with the Riverside Village “natural path”? Did I miss something?
Nov 9, 2012, 2:50 am
If you want to look at voter intent and not wording, I think many voters looked at Initiative A votes as against the (false) staggering $1.1 million figure attached by the city to it passing. That figure isn’t accurate at all (the stretch doesn’t even need to be paved) but that’s what was sold to the people. So yeah, who wants to vote for $1.1 million to open up a mile and a half stretch to bicycles? Far fewer people than want the area freed up as a “bike path” as originally intended. So, A failed and B passed.
In reality, unless there’s some kickback involved, there’s zero incentive for the Mayor (who was the developer of the homes on the river in the banned stretch by the way) and the homeowners there to support a paved path when a gravel path is acceptable and discourages bike traffic. They don’t want the $1.1 million path between their backyards and the river any more that the taxpayers want to pay for it.
Nov 21, 2012, 12:01 pm
So much obfuscation going on re roads, bikes, paths, and developers especially……what a pain in the b–t. If there IS an electoral commission in this county, they need to hire a lit. prof from BSU to go over the language of initiatives for grammar, punctuation, and above all, clarity. Various lawyers who get involved in these efforts– being used to obfuscating in the first place– can’t be relied on to do it right.