(A) A petition addressed to the Council may be filed with the City Clerk requesting the Council to make a public improvement therein described and to assess the cost thereof, or that part of the cost as the Council shall decide, upon the property benefitted. Any petition so filed may be in 1 or more parts and shall be signed by 50% of the owners of the property to be assessed for the improvement, and the City Clerk shall not present to the Council any petition not so signed. A purchaser on land contract shall be deemed the owner of the land.
(B) Two or more owners of a single parcel shall be counted as 1 owner. The petition, in addition to the signatures of the owners, shall contain a brief description of the property owned by the respective signers thereof, and the genuineness of the signatures on each petition or part thereof shall be verified by the affidavit of the circulator.
(C) For the purpose of certifications of sufficiency of number of petitioners, the City Clerk may rely upon the most recent tax assessment roll as evidence of ownership of a parcel of land unless the tax assessment roll shall show a bank or mortgage company as the person to whom tax notices are to be mailed, in which event the Clerk shall make inquiry of the bank or mortgage company as to ownership of the parcel.
(D) Any person or persons having signed the petition on file in the offices of the City Clerk shall have the right to remove his or her name, until that time when the petition is formally accepted by the City Council at a regular or special meeting of the Council, through the adoption of a resolution, declaring the acceptance of the petition, as filed.