Monday, April 29, 2024
The Hood County Commissioners Court acknowledged that a petition to legalize the sale of all alcoholic beverages for off-premise consumption in Precinct 1 recently failed due to a lack of certified signatures.
Election Administrator Stephanie Cooper explained during the April 9 meeting that the petition garnered 1,500 signatures. However, about 2,000 were needed for the petition to pass.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Kevin Andrews said once the petition failed, there were some conflicting opinions on how to approach the situation as there isn’t anything in code that lays out specifically what to do if a petition doesn’t collect enough signatures.
He explained that while he was instructed to “let it die,” he ultimately decided to put it on the commissioners court agenda to “cover all bases,” and to let everybody know the petition did fail.
Cooper then confirmed that in section 501.033 of the Texas Election Code, it specifies that a petition needs to be recorded in the commissioner court minutes “whether or not it passed to go into an election or not.”
According to the Texas Election Code, “the date a petition is presented, the names of the signers, and the action taken with respect to the petition shall be entered in the minutes of the commissioners court.”
“All we're doing is just acknowledging that the election did fail for lack of certified signatures,” Hood County Judge Ron Massingill said.
Andrews made the motion to acknowledge that Petition HC 1222024-01 "petition for local option election to legalize the sale of all alcoholic beverages for off premise consumption" in only Justice of the Peace Precinct 1, failed for lack of certified signatures. After a second from Precinct 2 Commissioner Nannette Samuelson, the motion passed unanimously.
