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Any elective official provided for in this Charter may be removed from office by the electorate qualified to vote for a successor to such officer. Such officer shall be subject to removal in such manner as is now or may be hereafter provided by this Charter. The procedure to effect such removal shall be as follows:
A petition demanding that the question of removing such official be submitted to the electors qualified to vote for his or her successor shall be addressed to the Council and filed with the Clerk thereof. The petition shall contain a statement in not more than two hundred (200) words of the grounds upon which removal of such person is sought. Such petition shall be signed by registered voters (electors) equal in number to at least twenty-five (25) percent of the total vote cast at the election for such office, at the last preceding general Municipal election.
(Adopted November 4, 1969)
Petition papers shall be procured only from the Clerk of the Council, who shall keep a sufficient number of such blank petition papers on file for distribution as herein provided. Prior to the issuance of such petition papers an affidavit shall be made by one or more qualified electors and filed with the Clerk, stating the name and office of the officer sought to be removed. The Clerk, upon issuing any such petition paper to an elector, shall enter in a record, to be kept in the Clerk's office, the name of the elector to whom issued and shall certify upon each paper the name of the elector to whom issued and the date of issuance. No petition paper so issued shall be accepted as part of a petition unless it bears such certificates of the Clerk and unless it be filed as provided herein.
Each signer of a recall petition shall sign his or her name in ink or indelible pencil and shall place thereon after his or her name, his or her place of residence by street and number. To each such petition paper there shall be attached an affidavit of the circulator thereof, stating the number of signers to such part of the petition and that each signature appended to the paper was made in the circulator's presence and is the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be.
All papers comprising a recall petition shall be assembled and filed with the Clerk as one (1) instrument within thirty (30) days after the filing with the Clerk of the affidavit stating the name and office of the officer sought to be removed. Within ten (10) days from the date of the filing of such petition the Clerk shall determine the sufficiency in valid signatures and attach thereto a certificate showing the result of the Clerk's examination. If the Clerk shall certify that the petition is insufficient the Clerk shall set forth in the certificate the particulars in which the petition is defective, and shall return a copy of the certificate to the person designated in such petition to receive it.
Such recall petition may be amended at any time within twenty (20) days after the making of the certificate of insufficiency by the Clerk, by filing a supplementary petition upon additional petition papers, issued, signed and filed, as provided herein for the original petition. The Clerk shall, within ten (10) days after such amendment is filed, make like examination of the amended petition, and if the certificate shall show the same to be still insufficient in valid signatures, the Clerk shall return it to the person designated in such petition to receive it, without prejudice, however, to the filing of a new petition for the same purpose, provided that no new petition shall be filed within three (3) months thereafter.
If a recall petition or amended petition shall be certified by the Clerk to be sufficient in valid signatures the Clerk shall at once submit the same with the certificate to the Council and shall notify the officer sought to be recalled of such action. If the officer whose removal is sought does not resign within five (5) days after such notice, the Council shall thereupon order and fix a day for holding a recall election. Any such election shall be held not less than thirty (30) days and not more than forty (40) days after the petition has been presented to the Council, at the same time as any other general or special election held within such period; but if no such election be held within such period, the Council shall call a special recall election to be held within the aforesaid time.
The form of the ballots used in recall elections, the method of marking and counting such ballots and determining the result of such election, shall conform in all particulars to the provisions of this Charter relative to regular Municipal elections. Recall ballot procedures shall comply with the General Laws of the State of Ohio wherein the electorate must first vote "For" or "Against" the recall of an elected officer and the name of the officer whose removal is sought shall not appear on the ballot below the recall issue as a candidate to succeed the officer's self.
(Amended November 6, 2001)
Except as provided in this section, nominations of candidates to succeed any officer whose removal is sought shall be made in the manner provided for in this Charter, and nominating petitions shall be filed with the election authorities at least twenty-five (25) days prior to the date of holding such recall election. Any person so nominated shall file his or her acceptance of such candidacy with the election authorities at least twenty (20) days before the date of the recall election; and in the absence of such acceptance his or her name shall not appear on the ballot. Any officer sought to be removed may be a candidate to succeed himself or herself, and unless he or she requests otherwise, in writing at least twenty-five (25) days prior to the date of holding the recall election, the election authorities shall place his or her name on the official ballot without nomination. Recall ballot procedures shall comply with the General Laws of the State of Ohio wherein the electorate must first vote "For" or "Against" the recall of an elected officer and the name of the officer whose removal is sought shall not appear on the ballot below the recall issue as a candidate to succeed the officer's self.
(Amended November 6, 2001)
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