Initiative and Referendum
Sections
Section 1. Power of Initiative
The voters of the City of Gardener shall have the power to propose any ordinance, except an ordinance appropriating money, authorizing the levy of taxes or setting the salary of municipal employees, and to adopt or reject the same at the polls, such power being known as the initiative. Any initiative ordinance may be submitted to the Council by a petition signed by 500 qualified voters.
Section 2. Power of Referendum
The voters of the City of Gardiner shall have power to approve or reject at the polls an ordinance passed by the City Council, or submitted by the Council to a vote of the voters, such power being known as referendum. Ordinances submitted to the Council by initiative petition and passed by the Council shall be subject to the referendum in the same manner as other ordinances. Within 20 days after the enactment by the City Council of any ordinance which is subject to a referendum, a petition signed by at least 500 registered voters of the City of Gardiner, may be filed with the City Clerk, requesting that any such ordinance be either repealed or submitted to vote of the voters.
Section 3. Form of Petitions
The petitions used to invoke the initiative and referendum shall be substantially in the following form:
Petition to the Gardiner City Council for the Submission to the People of the Question: Shall the proposed ordinance, a copy of which is hereto attache, be adopted?
We, the undersigned, under oath, depose and say that we are qualified voters of the City of Gardiner, residing respectively at the addresses placed opposite our names, and we hereby petition the City Council to submit the foregoing question to the voter of the City of Gardiner.
Names Residences Date
______ _________ ________
Name_____Street and Number_____________
being duly sworn deposes and says that he is the circulator of the foregoing petition containing_________signatures, and that the signatures appended thereto were made in his presence and are the signatures of the persons whose names they purport to be.
Signed_________________
Subscribed and sworn to before me this___-day of______,20
_____________________________
(Justice of the Peace or Notary Public)
Section 4. Filing, Examination & Certification of Petitions
All petition papers, comprising an initiative or referendum petition, shall be assembled and filed with the City Clerk as one instrument. Within 20 days after a petition is filed, the City clerk shall determine whether each paper of the petition has proper statement of the circulator and whether the petition is signed by a sufficient number of qualified voters. After completing his examination of the petition, the City Clerk shall certify the result thereof to the City Council at its next regular meeting. If he shall certify that the petition is insufficient, he shall set forth in his certificate the particulars in which it is defective and shall at once notify the circulator of the petition as to his findings.
Section 5. Amendments of Petitions
Any initiative or referendum petition may be amended at any time within 10 days after the notification of insufficiency has been sent by the City Clerk, by filing a supplementary petition upon additional papers signed and filed as provided in the case of an original petition. The finding of the insufficiency of a petition shall not prejudice filing of a new petition for the same purpose.
Section 6. Effect of Certification of Referendum Petitions
When a referendum petition, or amended petition, has been certified as sufficient by the City Clerk, the ordinance specified in the petition shall not go into effect; or further action thereunder shall be suspended if it shall have gone into effect, until or unless approved by the voters, as hereinafter provided.
Section 7. Consideration by Council
Whenever the City Council receives a certified initiative or referendum petition from the City Clerk, it shall proceed at once to consider such petition. A proposed initiative ordinance shall be read and provisions shall be made for a public hearing upon the proposed ordinance. The Council shall take final action on the ordinance not later then 60 days after the date on which such ordinance was submitted to the Council by the City Clerk. A referred ordinance shall be considered by the Council and its final vote upon such reconsideration shall be upon the question, "Shall the ordinance specified in the referendum petition be repealed?" In the case of referendum the entire repeal of the ordinance sought to be referred, and in the case of the initiative, the passage the City Council of the desired ordinance shall put an end to all proceedings under said petition.
Section 8. Submission to Voters
If the City Council shall fail to pass an ordinance proposed by initiative petition, or shall pass it in a form different from that set forth in the petition therefore, or if the City Council fails to repeal a referred ordinance, the proposed or referred ordinance shall be submitted to the electorate not less than 15 days nor more than 6 months from the date the Council takes its final vote thereon. The City Council may, in its discretion and if no regular election is to be held within such period, shall provide for a special election.
Section 9. Publication
Whenever any ordinance is required by this article to be submitted to the voters of the City at any election, the City Council must order one publication of the complete text thereof to be made in one, or more should the City Council deem it best, of the newspapers published or having a general circulation in the City of Gardiner such publication to be made not less than 10 days nor more than 20 days prior to the election.
Section 10. Form of Ballot
The ballots used when voting on such a proposed ordinance shall set forth the title thereof in full and state its general nature; it shall contain the words: "For the Ordinance" and "Against the Ordinance"
Section 11. Results of the Election
If a majority of the voters voting on a proposed initiative ordinance shall vote in favor thereof, it shall thereupon be an ordinance of the City. A referred ordinance which is not approved by the majority of the voters voting thereon shall thereupon be deemed repealed. If conflicting ordinances are approved by the voters at the same election, the one receiving the greatest number of affirmative votes shall prevail to the extent of such conflict.
Section 12. Publication of Ordinances
Initiative and referendum ordinances adopted and approved by the voters shall be published as in the case of other ordinances.