This morning, members of the Citizens' Initiative for Hudson
Charter Change submitted their petition to Tracy Delaney, the City Clerk, thus setting in
motion the next phase of the campaign to change the structure of Hudson’s city government.
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| Tracy Delaney, accepting the petition from Nick Haddad and Kristal Heinz |
The following is quoted from a press release issued by the Citizens' Initiative for Charter Change:
The bound and covered document, 138 pages in all, containing 240 voters’ signatures, represents several years of study and work by a team of local volunteers, all registered voters in Hudson.
The process now enters a 30-day period, during which the clerk is required to determine the legal sufficiency of the petition, subject to judicial review. Whether or not the City Clerk determines the petition to be legally sufficient, she is required to submit the proposal to the Common Council. It then has 60 days to consider the proposal.
If the Common Council fails to adopt the proposal without change within 60 days following its filing, and such petition meets all the requirements of law, voters who did not sign the original petition may file an additional petition with the City Clerk requiring a submission of the proposal at next November’s general election. If this additional petition is found to be adequate, the Clerk is required to present the matter to the County Board of Elections to include the petitioned for local law amending the charter as a referendum on the November ballot.
Finally, if the referendum receives a majority of the votes cast in November, the local law change will be adopted, and the new charter will be in effect as provided in the proposal, giving the Common Council two years to implement a council-manager form of government.
Great news! Time for people to start getting serious and not assuming the status quo will continue through putting your head in the sand.
ReplyDeleteIt will be real interesting to see how this plays out in the council. I hope they can come together and tweak it into something that we can all be proud of. Many good points have been made by people here, elsewhere in the public sphere, and at the information sessions—including by the few council members that cared enough to attend. It will also be a good test to see which of them is dedicated to the future of Hudson and righting the ship, and which of them are too lazy or unconcerned to roll up their sleeves and do the work of the people.
I don't see a world where the council will do anything with this. In fact, I am curious if this will actually make it onto the council's agenda. Tom indicated to me that it might not. It would be such a Tom move.
DeleteWhy don't the Citizens Initiative folks partner with one of the mayoral candidates and show us how you can "do politics" in Hudson. --peter meyer
ReplyDeletePeter, I can't speak for the rest of the group, but after 3+ years of regular meetings and homework, I'm ready for a little break!
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