The electors of the City shall have the power to propose any ordinance or resolution, except an ordinance for the appropriation of money or authorization for a tax levy, and to adopt or reject the same at the polls, such power being known as the initiative. An initiative petition shall be submitted to the Clerk of the Council by petition signed by the registered electors of the City not less in number than ten (10) percent of the number voting at the last preceding general election.
When so submitted, the Clerk shall forthwith determine the sufficiency of the petition. If found insufficient the electors proposing the petition shall have ten (10) days after notification to correct the insufficiency. If found sufficient the Council shall at once have the proposed ordinance or resolution read and referred to an appropriate committee which may be a committee of the whole.
Provision shall be made for public hearing on the proposed ordinance or resolution not later than twenty (20) days after the date on which such ordinance or resolution was submitted to the Clerk. The Council shall, within sixty (60) days after such ordinance was submitted, take final action thereon, either enacting, amending, or rejecting the proposed ordinance or resolution.
If the Council fails or refuses to pass such proposed ordinance or resolution or passes it in some form different from that set forth in the petition therefor, the petitioners may require that it be submitted to a vote of the electors either in its original form or in the amended form by filing with the Clerk, within ten (10) days after final action on such ordinance or resolution by Council, a supplemental petition signed by that number of additional registered electors which, when taken together with those who signed the original petition, total not less in number than twenty (20) percent of the electors of the City voting at the last preceding general election, and if said supplemental petition is signed by such number of additional registered electors, the date of the election may be fixed therein, not less than ninety (90) days from the time of filing such supplemental petition. The Council shall thereupon provide for submitting such ordinance or resolution to the vote of the electors at the date so fixed, or at the next general election in any year occurring more than ninety (90) days from the filing of such supplemental petition, if no date be so fixed therein.
No measure initiated by the people and adopted by popular vote shall be repealed by the Council, or so amended by it as to destroy the effectiveness thereof, within one (1) year after it takes effect.
(Amended November 5, 2013; November 5, 2019)