Concerned Citizens became aware of a ballot initiative that was done incorrectly by the city of Lamar at the November 2021 election. The entire process was orchestrated by the previous city administrator Steve Kil with total disregard for council’s input or opinions. After multiple Open Record Requests were completed, the facts revealed that City Administrator, Steve Kil, had notified the petition carriers of the number of signatures required to get the question on the ballot and that number was 645 according to an email sent to SOCO and Morgan Becker. SOCO Rocks submitted two ballot questions and Steve Kil sent an email to Mayor Kirk Crespin that he did not like the wording of the question. Steve Kil then proceeded to write the question on behalf of the petitioner, create the petition form for the petitioner which had 600 signature lines on it indicating the number of signatures needed for the ballot initiative. Then Steve Kil forwarded the information to Morgan Becker and asked her to send it to SOCO. Steve Kil further advised Morgan to have SOCO send it to the city clerk, Linda Williams whom he had left out of the communications. According to the City of Lamar Charter, the City of Lamar is not supposed to write the question for the petitioner, much less create the petition for them. Morgan Becker was in communication with SOCO regarding purchasing property before the ballot initiative passed by investors trying to get a better financial deal. All of this was done without the council being aware of these communications. The first the council and public knew of it was April 2, 2021 when it was announced that SOCO would be carrying petitions regarding marijuana dispensaries and council was to approve the petition. However, the question on the petition was regarding the taxation of marijuana, not the actual approval of dispensaries although Steve Kil’s email to council stated it was for the retail sale of marijuana. The manner in which the question was written and Steve Kil’s email to council was very deceiving to the public and council. The city of Lamar produced the petitions at their cost (this was to be paid by SOCO) and provided them to the petitioners giving them advice on how to get more signatures. City Clerk Linda Williams reviewed the first set of petitions that were turned in as complete and had to return them to the petitioners because they had been taken apart. She then gave them some time to correct the signatures and gather more signatures. The open records reports indicated Linda Williams emailed SOCO and advised they needed more signatures because so many of them were not registered voters. Linda issued a statement of sufficiency which was incorrect for the following reasons: (1) Some of the petitions that were turned in were not certified by the petition carriers, (2) The number of signatures was well below the required number of 645 (3) The petitions were not turned in by the initial deadline. Linda Williams issued the statement of sufficiency for the petitions as follows: statement of sufficiency

We, the concerned citizens of Lamar, trust in our elected officials to lead us in the right direction. However, it is impossible for them to do their job if they do not have important facts and information to make wise decisions. Our goal is to equip are elected officials with the facts and support them to speak out on our behalf to protect and preserve our community.