Minutes - Council - 04/09/1996 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CHAPTER 5 INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM AND RECALL Section 5.1. Powers Reserved by the People. The people of the City of Ramsey reserve to themselves the powers in accordance with the provisions of this charter to initiate and adopt ordinances, to require ordinances passed by the council to be referred to the electorate for approval or disapproval, and to recall elected public officials. These powers shall be called the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, respectively. Section 5.2. General Provisions for Petitions. A petition provided for under this chapter shall be sponsored by a committee of five registered voters of the city whose names and addresses shall appear on the petition. A petition may consist of one or more papers, but each separately circulated paper shall contain at its head, or attached thereto, the information specified in sections 5.5., 5.7. or 5.8. which apply, respectively, to initiative, referendum and recall. Each signer shall be a registered voter of the city and shall sign his/her name and give his/her street address. Each separate Opage of the petition shall have appended to it a certificate by the circulator, verified by oath, that each signature appended there to was made in his/her presence and that the circulator believes them to be the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be. The person making the certificate shall be a resident of the city and registered to vote. Any person whose name appears on a petition may withdraw his/her name by a statement in writing filed with the clerk-administrator before said clerk-administrator advises the council of the sufficiency of the petition. Section 5.3. Determination of Sufficiency. The committee shall file the completed petition in the office of the clerk-administrator. The required number of signatures for initiative and referendum shall be at least ten percent of the total number of registered voters at the time of the last city-wide election. The required number of signatures for recall shall be at least twenty percent of the total number of registered voters at the time of the last city-wide election. Immediately upon receipt of the petition, the clerk-administrator shall examine the petition as to its l~sufficiency and report to the council within ten days. Upon receiving the report, the council shall determine by resolution the sufficiency of the_petition.