GCCC and the petiton

It took a long time and 3 attorneys to get what we consider a great petition. One attorney retired while we were in the process of writing the petition and we needed to get a few things figured out because no one has done this before in SD. This is very different from the Deuel County issue of a few years ago. The law (SDCL11-2-28 ) is pretty plain, there must be a hearing, the zoning board must make a recommendation and then the Commissioners must vote on the petition itself. If they reject it we then have a time that we can gather signatures of 5% of the registered voters and the people of the County will be able to vote on the issue. We did not want to drag it out, we gave ourselves a 6 week deadline and came up with well over the needed number of signers. Nearly everyone is a landowner that lives nearby. The list we worked from and what the County Auditor said she would accept had many landowners who live all over the nation, a number of 'entities' such as Wells Fargo and Otter Tail, and people who are deceased. We wish to thank Ms. Layher for her cooperation in this. Also for getting through the names on the petition so quickly.
I personally did not carry a petition, but what amazed me was the people from all parts of the County who did, including a couple of people who came on board when they were asked to sign. Between visiting time and road time, it is a conservative estimate that each signature represents an hour of each petitioners time. Thank you to those who circulated the petitions.
All we ever wanted is for people to be able to vote on whether or not they want this ordinance changed to come up to date with the size of the facilities. If the community votes 'no', we would pursue this no further at the County level.