04-14-12 Special Meeting of La Porte City Council (council retreat)

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PARTI- CHARTER CHARTER COMPARATIVE TABLE fifty (50) percent of the number of votes cast in the last regular municipal election. 3. Circulators. There shall appear on each petition the names and addresses of five (5) electors, who, as circulators, shall be regarded as responsible for the circulation and filing of the petition. 4. Affidavit. Attached to each separate petition paper there shall be an affidavit of the circulator thereof that he, and he only, personally circulated the foregoing paper, that it bears a stated number of signatures, that all signatures appended thereto were made in his presence, and that he believes them to be genuine signatures of the persons whose names they purport to be. b. Submission of petition. 1. Filing. All petition papers comprising an initiative or referendum petition shall be assembled and filed with the city secretary as one instrument. 2. Examination. Within twenty (20) days after a petition is filed, the city secretary shall determine whether each paper of the petition has a proper statement of the circulator and whether the petition is signed by a sufficient number of qualified electors. The city secretary shall declare any petition paper entirely invalid which does not have attached thereto an affidavit signed by the circulator thereof. If a petition paper is found to be signed by more persons than the number of signatures certified by the circulator, the last signatures in excess of the number certified shall be disregarded. If a petition paper is found to be signed by fewer persons than the number certified, the signatures present shall be accepted unless void on other grounds. 3. Certification. (a) Procedure. After completing his examination of the petition, the city secretary shall certify the result thereof to 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 circulators of his findings. (b) Effect. When a referendum petition or amended petition has been certified as sufficient by the city secretary, 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 and unless approved by the electors, as hereinafter provided. c. Amendment of petition. An initiative or referendum petition may be amended at any time within ten (10) days after the notification of insufficiency has been sent by the city secretary, by filing a supplementary petition upon additional papers signed and filed as provided in case of an original petition. The city secretary shall, within five (5) days after such an amendment is filed, make examination of the amended petition and, if the petition be still insufficient, he shall file his certificate to that effect in his office and notify the circulators of his findings and no further action shall be had on such insufficient petition. d. Refiling not prejudiced. The finding of the insufficiency of a petition shall not prejudice the filing of a new petition for the same purpose. 6.04. - Consideration of referendum or initiative by council. Whenever city council receives a certified initiative or referendum petition from the city secretary, it shall proceed at once to consider such petition and shall take final action on it within sixty (60) days after the Page 22 of 32 La Porte, Texas, Code of Ordinances