Explanation
BACKGROUND
On June 18, 2018, petitioners Christina L. Gonzaga, Tyrone Spence, Udell Hollins, Dolores A. Williams, Irene Gil Llamas, Jabarisidiki Gregg, and Charles Dickerson filed with the City Clerk a pre-circulation copy of a petition for a proposed ordinance, titled “To authorize and direct the City Auditor to establish an Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency Fund, a Clean Energy Education and Training Fund, a Minority Business Enterprise Clean Energy Development fund and to transfer $5,000,000 to each of these funds for a total of $15,000,000 for the appropriate purposes; to establish a Columbus Clean Energy Partnership Fund and to authorize the expenditure of $42,000,000 for the purpose of funding a electricity subsidy program for residents of the City of Columbus; to establish a transparency and accountability reporting requirement for the City Auditor for all uses of funds in section 1,2,3, and 4; to waive the competitive bidding provisions of the Columbus City Codes.” Following this, on June 12, 2019, petitioners filed with the City Clerk a petition for said ordinance. Petitioners filed 633 part-petitions containing 14,948 signatures.
On June 27, 2019, the City Attorney’s office advised this Council that the subject petition complies with Section 42-2 of the City Charter, which sets forth the requirements as to form for each petition for a proposal initiated by a citizen.
In addition, on June 28, 2019, 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 exceeds the standard as defined in Section 43 of the Charter (“equal to not less than five percent of the total vote cast at the last preceding municipal election for mayor”).
Based on the foregoing, this Council finds that the petitioners have complied with the relevant provisions of the City Charter as stated above, and th...
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