(A) Any person eligible to the commission may be placed in nomination therefor by a petition filed in his behalf with the election authorities and signed by not less than fifty (50) nor more than one hundred (100) electors of his ward, as a candidate for ward commissioner. Signatures to nominating petitions need not all be appended to one paper but to each separate paper there shall be attached an affidavit of the circulator thereof stating that each signature thereto was made in his presence and is the genuine signature of the person whose name is purports to be. Each signer of a petition shall sign his name in ink or indelible pencil and, after his name, shall designate his residence by street and number, or other description sufficient to identify the place, and give the date when the signature was made. If any elector signed petitions from more than one candidate his signature shall be invalid except as to the petition first filed. Nominating petition papers shall not be placed in circulation before the first day of the month of March next preceding the election to which they are to apply, and any such petition paper placed in circulation before that time, or bearing any signature placed thereon before that time, shall be rejected as entirely invalid.
(B) No candidate for the office of city commission shall seek the office as a candidate of a political party, and no candidate, or committee authorized by the candidate to support him, for the office of city commission shall expend combined monies or other thing of value in excess of Three Hundred Dollars ($300.00) to secure a nomination or election of a candidate. Candidates shall not personally solicit support or expense or other thing of value to secure a nomination or election from any constituted, licensed, or chartered organization as such. A violation of this provision shall disqualify said candidate from becoming a candidate in any future election for a period of five (5) years, and if elected he shall be disqualified from holding the office, and the person receiving the next highest number of votes, who has observed the foregoing conditions shall be entitled to the office.
Piqua is permanently enjoined from enforcing the provision in subsection (B) of Section 115 of the Piqua Charter which limits a candidate or committee authorized by the candidate from expending more than three hundred dollars ($300) in seeking the office of city commissioner. See Shoemaker vs The City of Piqua, Case No. 99-472, May 8, 2000, Judge Robert J. Lindeman.
(C) Any charge pertaining to the violation of Section 115 (A) and (B) shall be made in writing and sworn to within fifty (50) days after election, and shall be heard before a disinterested committee of five (5) to be chosen by the commission.
(Adopted by electorate, November 6, 1979 – Amending Ordinance No. 51-79)