The electors of the Municipality shall have the power to remove from office by a recall election any person holding an elective position of the Municipality. If a person holding an elective position shall have served six months of a term, a form of petition demanding removal may be filed with the Director of Finance, who shall note thereon the name and address of the person filing the petition, and the date of such filing, and deliver to such person a receipt therefor and attach a copy thereof to said petition. A petition in such form may be circulated in separate parts, but the separate parts shall be bound together and filed as one instrument. Each part shall contain the name, address and office of the person whose removal is sought and a statement in not more than two hundred words of the grounds for the removal. Such petition for all elected officers, except a ward council member, shall be signed by qualified electors of the Municipality equal in number to at least twenty-five percent of the total number of electors registered to vote in the Municipality at the last preceding regular Municipal election. For a ward council member, such petition shall be signed by qualified electors of such ward equal in number to at least twenty-five percent of the total number of electors registered to vote in such ward at the last preceding Municipal election. Except as expressly modified herein, all such petitions in form, circulation, placement and withdrawal of signatures, alterations and corrections, shall conform to the laws of the State of Ohio applicable to the holding of any issue.
Within ten days after the day on which such petition shall have been filed the Director of Finance shall determine whether or not it meets the requirements hereof. If the Director of Finance shall find the petition insufficient, Director of Finance shall promptly certify the particulars in which the petition is defective, deliver a copy of the Director of Finance's certificate to the person who filed the petition, and make a record of such delivery. Such person shall be allowed a one-time period of twenty days after the day on which delivery was made in which to make the petition, and all parts thereof if so filed, sufficient. If the Director of Finance shall find the petition sufficient, the Director of Finance shall promptly so certify to the Council, shall deliver a copy of such certificate to the officer whose removal is sought, and make a record of such delivery.
If such officer shall not resign within five days after the day on which delivery shall have been made, the Council shall thereupon fix a day for holding a recall election, not less than sixty days nor more than seventy-five days after the date of such delivery. In the case of a recall election for a ward Councilperson, the election shall be held in the ward represented by that Councilperson. At such recall election, this question shall be placed upon the ballot: "Shall (naming the officer) be allowed to continue as (naming the office) with the provisions being made on the ballot for voting affirmatively or negatively on such question." If a majority of the votes cast at such election shall be voted affirmatively, such officer shall remain in office. If a majority of the votes cast shall be voted negatively, such officer shall be considered as removed, when the results of the election are certified by the Board of Elections, the office shall be declared vacant, and such vacancy shall be filled as provided by this Charter. The officer removed by such recall election shall not be eligible for appointment to the vacancy created thereby.
(Amended November 8, 1994; November 2, 2010)