CHARTER
OF THE
CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, OHIO

ARTICLE VIII - INITIATIVE

SECTION 48.   PROPOSAL PETITION

Any proposed ordinance including an ordinance for the repeal or amendment of an ordinance then in effect may be submitted to the city commission by petition signed by at least five percent (5%) of the total number of registered voters in the municipality at the last regular municipal election. All petitions circulated with respect to any proposed ordinance shall be uniform in character, shall contain the proposed ordinance in full, and shall have printed or written thereon the names and addresses of at least five (5) electors who shall be officially regarded as filing the petition and shall constitute a committee of the petitioners for the purpose hereinafter named.

Each signer of a petition shall sign his name, address and date. The signatures to any such petition need not all be appended to one paper, but to each such paper there hsall be attached an affidavit by the circulator thereof, stating the number of signers to such part of the petition and that each signature appended to the paper is the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be, and that it was made in the presence of the affiant and on the date indicated.

Before any ordinance so proposed shall be submitted to the City Commission, it shall first be approved as to its form by the city law director, whose duty it shall be to draft such proposed ordinance in proper legal language, and to render such other service to persons desiring to propose such ordinance as shall be necessary to make the same proper for consideration by the City Commission.

SECTION 49.   TIME OF FILING.

All papers comprising a petition shall be assembled and filed with the clerk of the city commission as one instrument, within one hundred twenty days from the date of the first signature thereon, and when so filed the clerk shall submit the same to the city commission at its next regular meeting and provision shall be made for public hearings upon the proposed ordinance within ten (10) days from the time said petition was presented to the city commission.

SECTION 50.   PETITION FOR ELECTION.

The city commission shall at once proceed to consider such petition and shall take final action thereon within thirty (30) days from the date of submission. If the city commission rejects the proposed ordinance, or passes it in a different form from that set forth in the petition, or fails to act finally upon it within the time stated, the committee of the petitioners by written demand filed with the clerk of the city commission not later than twenty (20) days after final action or inaction by the city commission, may require that the proposed ordinance be submitted to a vote of the electors in its original form, if, with or prior to such demand, a petition for such election, signed after the final action for [sic] inaction of the city commission is filed with such clerk bearing additional signatures of five percent (5%) of the registered voters of the city at the last election, none of whom were signers of the first petition. Such clerk shall forthwith cause notice of the filing of such demand and petition to be published in some newspaper of general circulation in the City, and shall also within five (5) days certify to the officers having control of elections the proposed ordinances, stating whether or not a special election is demanded in the petitions, the percentage of registered voters at the last municipal election who signed the two petitions in the aggregate, and the date on which he published the notice last mentioned.

SECTION 51.   TIME OF HOLDING ELECTION.

If an election is to be held not more than ninety (90) days nor less than thirty (30) days after the publication of such notice by the clerk, such proposed ordinance shall be submitted to a vote of the electors at such election. If no election is to be held within the time aforesaid, the election officers shall provide for submitting the proposed ordinance to the electors at a special election to be held no later than sixty (60) days nor earlier than thirty (30) days after the publication of such notice, if the petition for such ordinance and the petition for such election so demand, and if the signers of the two petitions amount in the aggregate to at least twenty-five percent (25%) of the registered voters in the municipality at the last regular municipal election. At least ten (10) days before any such election the clerk of the city commission shall cause such proposed ordinance to be published.

SECTION 52.   ACCEPTED VOTING DEVICE.

The voting devices approved by the general laws of the State of Ohio used when voting upon any such proposed ordinance shall clearly state the title of the ordinance ot be voted on, and shall provide for a vote "For" and "Against" the ordinance. If a majority of the electors voting on any such proposed ordinance shall vote in favor thereof, it shall thereupon become an ordinance of the city.

SECTION 53.   AMENDMENTS AND REPEALS.

No ordinance adopted by an electoral vote can be replaced or amended escept by an electoral vote. But an ordinance to repeal or amend any such ordinance may, by resolution of the city commission, be submitted to an electoral vote at any regular election or at any special municipal election called for some other purpose, provided notice of the intention so to do be published by the city commission not more than sixty (60) nor less than thirty (30) days prior to such election, in the manner required for the publication of ordinances. If an amendment is so proposed, such notice shall contain the proposed amendment in full. Such submission shall be in the same manner, and the vote shall have the same effect, as in cases of ordinances submitted to an election by popular petition. Such ordinance ot be voted upon shall be published in the manner provided by Section 20 hereof.

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