SECTION 15. INITIATIVE PETITIONS - FILING AND PROCEDURE.

   (a)    Any proposed ordinance or resolution may be submitted to the Council by petition signed by electors equal in number to ten percent of the total vote cast in the last preceding regular municipal election of the City for the office of Mayor. All petition papers, circulated with respect to any proposed ordinance or resolution shall be uniform in character and shall contain the proposed ordinance or resolution in full and have printed thereon the names and addresses of at least five electors who shall be officially regarded as filing the petition and constitute a committee of the petitioners for the purposes hereinafter named. All actions taken by the committee of the petitioners shall be in writing and signed by at least three members thereof.

   (b)    The circulator of any petition paper shall be an elector of the City. Each signer of a petition shall sign their name in ink or indelible pencil and shall place on the petition paper after their name, their place of residency by street and number, or by other description sufficient to identify the place. The signatures to any such petition paper need not all be appended to one paper but to each paper there shall be attached an affidavit by the circulator thereof stating the number of signers to such part of the petition, that the circulator is an elector of the City, that the signatures on the petition paper were affixed in the presence of the circulator, and that the circulator believes each signature appended to the paper is the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be.

   (c)    All papers comprising a petition shall be assembled and filed with the City Attorney as one instrument. Within ten days from the filing of a petition, the City Attorney shall ascertain whether it is signed by the required number of qualified electors in the manner and form prescribed and that it conforms to all requirements of the Charter. Upon the completion of the City Attorney's examination, the City Attorney shall endorse upon the petition a certificate of the results thereof.

   (d)    If the City Attorney's certificate shows that the petition is insufficient, the City Attorney shall at once notify each member of the committee of the petitioners, hereinbefore provided for, and the petition may be amended by said committee at any time within ten days from the date of the City Attorney's certificate of examination, by filing with the City Attorney an additional petition paper or papers in the same manner as provided for the original petition.

   (e)    Upon the filing of such an amendment the City Attorney shall within ten days thereafter, examine the amended petition and attach thereto the City Attorney's certificate of the results. If still insufficient, or if no amendment shall have been filed, the City Attorney shall file the petition in the City Attorney's offices and shall notify each member of the committee of the insufficiency The final finding of the insufficiency of a petition shall not prejudice the filing of a new petition for the same purpose.

   (f)    When the certificate of the City Attorney shows the petition to be sufficient, the City Attorney shall submit the proposed ordinance or resolution 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 a committee of the whole Council. Provision shall be made for public hearings upon the proposed ordinance or resolution before the committee to which it is referred. Thereafter the committee shall report the proposed ordinance or resolution to the Council, with its recommendations thereon, not later than sixty days after the date on which the proposed ordinance or resolution was submitted by the City Attorney.

   (g)    Upon receiving the proposed ordinance or resolution from its committee, the Council shall at once proceed to consider it and shall take final action, thereon within thirty days from the date such committee reports its recommendations on the proposed ordinance or resolution. If the Council rejects the proposed ordinance or resolution, or passes it in a form different from that set forth in the petition, the committee of the petitioners may require that it be submitted to a vote of the electors in its original form, or that it be submitted to a vote of the electors with any proposed change, addition or amendment which was presented by the petitioner's committee, or in writing either at a public hearing before the committee to which such proposed ordinance was referred, or during the consideration thereof by the Council. The committee of the petitioners shall certify the form of the proposed ordinance or resolution to be submitted to a vote of the electors to the City Attorney within ten days after final action on such proposed ordinance or resolution by the Council.

   (h)    When an ordinance or resolution proposed by petition is to be submitted to a vote of the electors the committee of the petitioners shall certify that fact and the proposed ordinance in the form in which it is to be submitted to the City Attorney within ten days after the final action on such proposed ordinance or resolution by the Council.

   (i)    Upon receipt of the certificates and certified copy of the proposed ordinance or resolution from the petitioner's committee, the City Attorney shall present such proposed ordinance or resolution to the Council at its next regular meeting. The Council shall provide for submitting the proposed ordinance or resolution to the electors on the next regular day designated by State law or this Charter for the holding of a primary or a general election, provided that such election day shall occur at least thirty (30) days after the receipt of the proposed ordinance or resolution from the City Attorney; except that Council may provide for submitting the proposed ordinance or resolution to the electors at a special election on a date fixed by the Council, upon a two-thirds vote of the members of the Council.

   (j)    Proposed ordinances or resolutions to repeal or amend any existing ordinance or resolution, in whole or in part, may be submitted to the Council as provided in the preceding sections for the initiating of ordinances or resolutions.

   (k)    Ordinances rejected or repealed by an electoral vote shall not be re-enacted, in whole or in part, except by an electoral vote.

   (l)    Ordinances approved by an electoral vote shall not be repealed, amended or supplemented except by an electoral vote.

(Amended 11-7-78; 11-6-18.)