Baltimore City Council members on Monday let go their last opportunity to neutralize a ballot initiative that could cut their membership by nearly half, leaving six of them without jobs and upending politics at City Hall.

Instead of introducing their own counterquestion, the 15 council members are betting city voters will side with them and reject the ballot measure this November.

That could be a risky wager.

Proponents of the referendum to slash the size of the City Council — calling themselves People for Elected Accountability and Civic Engagement — submitted more than 25,000 signatures earlier this year, far exceeding the threshold needed to qualify for the November ballot. The proposal would reduce the council to eight members from 14, plus a president elected citywide.

Ballot measures have also historically received overwhelming support from Baltimore voters. But city attorneys have made clear that if two successful charter amendments are completely contradictory, both will be thrown out.

PEACE’s effort has been bankrolled almost exclusively by David Smith, a Baltimore County businessman who bought The Baltimore Sun earlier this year, and whose national network of Sinclair, Inc. news stations is known for its conservative leanings. A measure in 2022 to impose term limits on City Hall, also backed by PEACE, was the least popular of seven referenda and still drew 71% of the vote in favor of it.

The decision to forgo a countermeasure comes in spite of steps by one City Council member, Odette Ramos, to draft legislation that could have placed two competing referendums on the ballot: one to nullify the PEACE-backed plan, and the other to nullify Renew Baltimore, whose proposal to cut the city’s property tax rate is currently in legal limbo.

But Ramos let the Monday deadline come and go, saying in an interview that city leadership decided introducing competing measures would only serve to confuse voters.

Petitions to appear on the November ballot must be submitted by July 29. Monday was the only regularly scheduled City Council meeting on the calendar, making it the last opportunity for the body to submit a competing referendum.

Council President Nick Mosby said he thinks pursuing the counter-legislation would be good for “dialogue and discourse,” but he deferred to Ramos on why she opted not to introduce her legislation. Ramos, who said she has been considering pursuing countermeasures to both PEACE and Renew for months, did not directly answer questions about whether she abandoned that idea because Mayor Brandon Scott wasn’t on board.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said Scott was not interested in pursuing a counter ballot initiative, but remained committed to working with council to defeat PEACE’s measure.

Jovani Patterson, the chairman for PEACE, said in an interview that any attempt to put a competing measure on the ballot would have gone against the will of the tens of thousands of people who supported a vote on shrinking the City Council and reducing the property tax rate in November. Elected officials shouldn’t suggest that they know better than residents what’s good for the city, Patterson said.

“I understand being for or against it, but if you’re trying to nullify or replace or remove it,” that’s goes against letting the people decide, he said.

Ramos said officials and residents need to come together to let voters know that “voting against having representation is not in people’s best interest.”

Many members of the City Council, along with Scott, have already aligned themselves with a broad coalition of progressive groups campaigning against both shrinking the City Council and cutting the property tax rate. A spokesperson for the group, known as Baltimore City Is Not For Sale, declined to comment on the City Council’s decision.

Ramos, though, said city leaders “just need everybody’s help” to appeal to voters to vote against the measure. “For folks that might be frustrated [about the council’s inaction], give me a call and let’s work together.”

But while current members of the council seemed content to bank on the success of a public awareness campaign, one likely newcomer expressed disappointment.

“It is unclear to me why the council’s current leadership did not submit a competing charter amendment,” said Zac Blanchard, the Democratic nominee to represent Central and South Baltimore’s 11th District. “I hope they provide Baltimoreans an honest explanation of their decision.”

If the Smith-backed proposal is successful, Blanchard argued it will be much harder for remaining council members to provide services to their constituents. And if the size of the council is slashed in 2028, Blanchard predicted that it will become “extremely difficult” for the body to work together over the next four years, “as we will all be playing the political version of musical chairs.”

Language submitted by Patterson’s organization to the Baltimore City Board of Elections argues that reducing the number of City Council districts would save “significant tax dollars and resources” for the city while still providing adequate representation. The language also states that eight districts more closely aligns the Baltimore City structure with that of other Maryland jurisdictions with comparable population sizes.

Outsiders to City Hall weren’t alone in arguing that council members should try to nullify the Smith-backed proposal.

The city’s charter review commission offered similar advice in a May report, arguing that the council should introduce a measure to reduce the council to 12 districts, a proposal that would likely have canceled out the PEACE plan if both were approved by voters. This approach would have mirrored a situation that played out four years ago in Montgomery County, when voters there faced conflicting ballot questions on both the council membership and the property tax.

Roger Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs, similarly expressed disappointment at the council’s decision. A member of the charter review commission, Hartley argued that bigger districts would further distance residents from their representatives while also making it more expensive to campaign, handing an even bigger advantage to powerful and well-known candidates. It will be much harder for someone like Blanchard, whose grassroots campaign toppled one of the most formidably financed members of the council, to pull off an upset.

“To be quite honest, I love them and really respect many of them, but I am a little surprised,” the professor said of the council’s decision. “If they are opposed to it I think it’s incumbent on leaders to speak out against it and mobilize against it.”