Explanation
BACKGROUND
On June 30, 2014, petitioners Karen S. Fries, Dana Leanne Kuhnline, Jennie A. Scheinbach, Michelle R. Phillips, Connie M. Hammond, and Karyn A. Deibel filed with the City Auditor a pre-circulation copy of a petition for a proposed amendment to the Charter of the City of Columbus, titled “Community Bill of Rights.” Following this, on July 2, 2015, petitioners filed with the City Clerk a petition for said amendment. Petitioners filed 373 part-petitions containing 13,461 signatures.
On July 14, 2015, the City Attorney’s office advised this Council that the subject petition fails to comply with several of the requirements of Section 42-2 of the City Charter, which governs the use of petition forms; specifically with regard to the following: 1) the title of the proposed amendment (“Community Bill of Rights”) does not clearly describe the amendment, and the title is not placed on each page of the part-petition; 2) a lack of notice language, as required by Section 42-2(g), on each page of the part-petition where the voters’ signatures may be placed; and 3) the circulator’s statement does not contain the compensation statement required by Section 42-2(h).
In addition, on July 13, 2015, the Franklin County Board of Elections certified its examination of the part-petitions, as required by Section 42-9 of the City Charter. The Board of Elections found that the total number of valid signatures did not meet or exceed the standard as detailed in Section 45 of the Charter (“equal to not less than ten percent of the total vote cast at the last preceding regular municipal election”).
Based on the foregoing, this Council finds that the petitioners’ failure to comply with the requirements of Section 42-2 of the City Charter, as well as the lack of a sufficient number of valid signatures, is fatal to the petition. As such, this Council finds that the petition for an initiated charter amendment is not legally sufficient and shall not be placed on the...
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