Save the Garden Fights for Downtown Control

0:00Clearwater City Clerk just knocked out more than half the signatures from Save the Garden's petition drive. The group wants a referendum forcing voter approval before the city hands over downtown public roads. They turned in 8,051 signatures on March 17th, but only 2,702 counted as valid. Now they need at least 4,365 more by April 17th to hit the 7,067 total required. The main issues? Petitions gathered before October were invalid because one committee member wasn't a registered voter in Clearwater back then, even though they fixed. A quick plus over 1,000 came from non-residents and the full ordinance text wasn't attached like the city charter demands. Save the garden isn't backing down. Their lawyer, former state rep Anthony Sabatini, calls it a simple fixable mistake, not fraud, and says Florida courts back that up. The groups fired up because they formed last year to counter a church of Scientology push

1:00for a downtown roadway, pushing instead for council. Super majority votes improve of public benefit. They're already planning to tweak the petition and hustle for fresh signatures in under 2 weeks. If they nail it, the city reviews, then council might adopt or send it to the August 18th ballot with a final deadline of June 12th. Keep watching this one folks. It's a classic clash over local control downtown and those extra signatures could make or break the fight. Local news, powered by AI. This is Tampa Bay News today.