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Greensboro voters this fall will elect City Council representatives to speak for them in municipal affairs. But voters can still have the last word. In fact, they sometimes insist on it.

Greensboro's city codes give citizens the powers of initiative, referendum and recall, and there's a long tradition here of using them.

The current example is the Aug. 21 recall election for Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small. Petitions signed by District 1 voters put the question of her tenure on the ballot.

The recall election will be the first since 1927, when voters decided to retain the mayor and three council members. But referendums have been held on several other issues since then, including land for a proposed downtown auditorium in 1946, water fluoridation in 1958, the city's voting system on five separate occasions from 1968 to 1981, smoking ordinances in 1989 and 1991, and on the matter of the downtown baseball stadium in 2003.

The initiatives often fail, but voters get a shot at direct democracy. And, no matter what the outcome, they remind elected officials who's really in charge.

The Asheville City Council learned the same lesson this summer. After it approved an ordinance making municipal elections partisan, displeased residents rapidly gathered enough signatures on petitions to force a referendum.

Greensboro's initiative, referendum and recall process is just as straightforward, although it has its limits. Citizens can't vote on the city's annual budget or the property tax rate, but most other issues are fair game.

It takes a relatively small number of petitioners to require the City Council to consider a proposed new ordinance, reconsider an existing one, or hold a referendum: 25 percent of the number of registered voters who participated in the preceding City Council election.

Fewer than 20,000 people voted in 2005, which means it requires fewer than 5,000 signatures to put an item on the ballot.

Excessive use of this authority could promote instability in local government. A newly elected mayor could find himself or herself the target of a recall drive only months later. A ballot could contain a long list of perplexing proposed ordinances. The stadium vote of 2003 was constructed in a confusing manner: voting "yes" meant opposing the downtown ballpark, voting "no" meant supporting it. "No" prevailed, saying yes to First Horizon Park.

The Bellamy-Small recall vote isn't meaningful because its outcome essentially will be eclipsed by the regular election in the fall. Yet, it was set up through proper, valid procedures. When Greensboro voters want to have their say, in most matters they have a way to get it. Power to the people.