Should Sammamish citizens be able to write their own laws and approve them by popular vote? Sammamish officials hope to find out this spring.

The city council on Tuesday approved an advisory vote to be placed on the April 28 special election ballot, asking Sammamish citizens if they want the power to create voter initiatives and referenda, thus creating and repealing laws at a grassroots level within the city.

The result of the advisory vote will be nonbinding, instead serving as a mandate for the city council to approve or deny those powers to voters at a later date.

According to city documents, 26 percent of Washington state’s 191 “code cities” — a legal designation adopted by most Washington municipalities — grant their citizens the powers of initiative and referendum. Sammamish is the sixth largest city in the state not to grant those powers, behind Kirkland, Kennewick, Auburn, Pasco and Marysville.

Initiative and referendum power allows citizens with sufficient support from petition signers to draft laws, or call for their repeal, and put them up to a popular vote. The power only applies to city ordinances, City Attorney Michael Kenyon said, but not all city ordinances — for example, ordinances that concern human resources matters like collective bargaining and city employee working conditions are exempt.

As of late, certain state lawmakers have been examining the state’s initiative process for potential reforms that would allow the state power to deny voter initiatives that don’t establish the costs to taxpayers.

“If that passes at the state level, would it affect the process at our level?” Councilwoman Kathleen Huckabay asked Kenyon.

Kenyon said it would not, as local initiatives would not affect state coffers.

As of press time Wednesday, the city of Sammamish had not begun advertising for pro and con ballot committees on the advisory vote.