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City of Cleveland Charter, Chapter #07
CHARTER OF CITY OF CLEVELANDChapter 7 — Initiative and ReferendumComplete to June 30, 2007
Any proposed ordinance may be submitted to the Council by petition signed by at least five thousand (5,000) qualified electors of the City. All petition papers, circulated with respect to any proposed ordinance, shall be uniform in character and shall contain the proposed ordinance in full, and have printed thereon the names and addresses of at least five electors of the City who shall be officially regarded as filing the petition and shall constitute a committee of the petitioners for the purposes hereinafter named.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
Each signer of a petition shall sign his name in ink or indelible pencil, and shall place on the petition paper after his name his place of residence 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 such paper there shall be attached an affidavit by the circulator thereof stating the number of signers to such part of the petition and that the circulator believes each signature appended to the paper is the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
All papers comprising a petition shall be assembled and filed with the Clerk of the Council as one instrument. Within ten (10) days from the filing of a petition the Clerk shall ascertain whether it is signed by the required number of qualified electors. Upon the completion of his examination the Clerk shall endorse upon the petition a certificate of the result thereof.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
If the Clerk's certificate shows that the petition is insufficient he shall at once notify each member of the committee of the petitioners, hereinbefore provided for, and the petition may be amended at any time within fifteen (15) days from the date of the Clerk's certificate of examination, by filing with the Clerk an additional petition paper or papers in the same manner as provided for the original petition.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
Upon the filing of such an amendment the Clerk shall, within ten (10) days thereafter, examine the amended petition and attach thereto his certificate of the result. If still insufficient, and if no amendment shall have been filed, the Clerk shall file the petition in his offices and shall notify each member of the committee of that fact. The final finding of the insufficiency of a petition shall not prejudice the filing of a new petition for the same purpose.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
When the certificate of the Clerk shows the petition to be sufficient, he shall submit the proposed ordinance 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 the committee of the whole. Provision shall be made for public hearings upon the proposed ordinance before the committee to which it is referred. Thereafter the committee shall report the proposed ordinance to the Council, with its recommendations thereon, not later than sixty days after the date on which the proposed ordinance was submitted to the Council by the Clerk.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
Upon receiving the proposed ordinance from the committee, the Council shall at once proceed to consider it and shall take final action thereon within thirty (30) days from the date of such committee report. If the Council rejects the proposed ordinance, 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 of the City in its original form, or that it be submitted to a vote of the electors of the City with any proposed change, addition or amendment, which was presented 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.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
When an ordinance proposed by petition is to be submitted to a vote of the electors of the City 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 Clerk of the Council within ten (10) days after the final action on such proposed ordinance by the Council.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
Upon receipt of the certificate and certified copy of the proposed ordinance, the Clerk shall certify the fact to the Council at its next regular meeting. If an election is to be held not more than six months nor less than thirty (30) days after the receipt of the Clerks certificate by the Council, such proposed ordinance shall then be submitted to a vote of the electors of the City. If no such election is to be held within the time aforesaid, the Council may provide for submitting the proposed ordinance to the electors of the City at a special election to be held not sooner than thirty days after the receipt of the Clerk's certificate. If a supplemental petition, signed by five thousand (5,000) qualified electors, in addition to those who signed the original petition, be filed with the Clerk asking that the proposed ordinance be submitted to the voters at a time indicated in such petition, the Council shall provide for a special election at such time. The sufficiency of any such supplemental petition shall be determined, and it may be amended in the manner provided for original petitions for proposing ordinances to the Council. If no other provision be made as to the time of submitting a proposed ordinance to a vote of the electors of the City, it shall be submitted at the next election.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
Proposed ordinances for repealing any existing ordinance or ordinances in whole or in part may be submitted to the Council as provided in the preceding sections for initiating ordinances. Initiated ordinances adopted by the electors of the City shall be published and may be amended or repealed by the Council as in the case of other ordinances.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
No ordinance passed by the Council, unless it be an emergency measure, shall go into effect until forty (40) days after its final passage by the Council. If at any time, within said forty (40) days a petition signed by electors equal in number to ten percent (10%) of the total vote cast at the last preceding regular Municipal election of the City be filed with the Clerk of the Council requesting that any such ordinance, or any specified part thereof, be repealed or submitted to a vote of the electors, it shall not become operative until the steps indicated herein have been taken. The petition shall be prepared and filed in the manner and form prescribed in the foregoing sections of this Charter for an initiative petition for an ordinance.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
When such a petition is filed with the Clerk of the Council he shall determine the sufficiency thereof in the manner provided in this Charter for an initiative petition for an ordinance. If the petition be found sufficient, or be rendered sufficient by amendment as provided in Sections 52, 53 and 54 hereof, the Clerk shall certify that fact to the Council, which shall proceed to reconsider the ordinance. If, upon such reconsideration, the ordinance be not entirely repealed the Council shall provide for submitting it to a vote of the electors of the City, and in so doing the Council shall be governed by the provisions of Sections 57 and 66 hereof respecting the time of submission and manner of voting on ordinances proposed to the Council by petition.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
Referendum petitions need not contain the text of the ordinances, the repeal of which is sought but they shall be subject in all other respects to the requirements for petitions submitting proposed ordinances to the Council.
(Effective November 9, 1931)
Ordinances submitted to the Council, by initiative petition and passed by the Council without change, or passed in an amended form and not required to be submitted to a vote of the electors of the City by the committee of the petitioners, shall be subject to the referendum in the same manner as other ordinances.
(Effective November 8, 1994)
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