§ 49 Ordinances by Initiative Petition
§ 50 Signing Petition
§ 51 Filing Petition
§ 52 Amending Petition
§ 53 Insufficiency of Petition
§ 54 Submitting Proposed Ordinances
§ 55 Action on Proposed Ordinance
§ 56 Ordinance Form Certification after Council Action
§ 57 Ordinance Certification and Submission for Vote
§ 58 Repealing Ordinances
§ 59 The Referendum
§ 60 Petition for Referendum
§ 61 Petition for Referendum Text
§ 62 Initiative Ordinances Subject to Referendum
Any proposed ordinance may be submitted to the Council by petition signed by at least five thousand (5,000) qualified electors of the City. All petition papers, circulated with respect to any proposed ordinance, shall be uniform in character and shall contain the proposed ordinance in full, and have printed thereon the names and addresses of at least five electors of the City who shall be officially regarded as filing the petition and shall constitute a committee of the petitioners for the purposes hereinafter named.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
Each signer of a petition shall sign his or her name in ink or indelible pencil, and shall place on the petition paper after the signer’s name his or her place of residence by street and number, or by other description sufficient to identify the place, and give the date when the signature was made. The signatures to any petition paper need not all be appended to one paper but on each separate paper the circulator shall indicate the number of signatures contained on the petition, and shall sign a statement made under penalty of election falsification that the circulator witnesses the affixing of every signature, that all signers were to the best of the circulator’s knowledge and belief qualified to sign, and that every signature is to the best of the circulator’s knowledge and belief the signature of the person whose name it purports to be.
(Effective November 4, 2008)
All papers comprising a petition shall be assembled and filed with the Clerk of the Council as one instrument by no later than 4:00 p.m. on a regular business day of the office of the Clerk. Within ten (10) days from the filing of a petition the Clerk shall ascertain whether it is signed by the required number of qualified electors. Upon the completion of the Clerk’s examination the Clerk shall endorse upon the petition a certificate of the result thereof.
(Effective November 4, 2008)
If the Clerk’s certificate shows that the petition is insufficient he shall at once notify each member of the committee of the petitioners, hereinbefore provided for, and the petition may be amended at any time within fifteen (15) days from the date of the Clerk’s certificate of examination, by filing with the Clerk an additional petition paper or papers in the same manner as provided for the original petition.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
Upon the filing of such an amendment the Clerk shall, within ten (10) days thereafter, examine the amended petition and attach thereto his certificate of the result. If still insufficient, and if no amendment shall have been filed, the Clerk shall file the petition in his offices and shall notify each member of the committee of that fact. The final finding of the insufficiency of a petition shall not prejudice the filing of a new petition for the same purpose.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
When the certificate of the Clerk shows the petition to be sufficient, he shall submit the proposed ordinance to the Council at its next regular meeting and the Council shall at once read and refer the same to an appropriate committee, which may be the committee of the whole. Provision shall be made for public hearings upon the proposed ordinance before the committee to which it is referred. Thereafter the committee shall report the proposed ordinance to the Council, with its recommendations thereon, not later than sixty days after the date on which the proposed ordinance was submitted to the Council by the Clerk.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
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