Posted By Sam Allard on Thu, May 9, 2019 at 9:48 am (Cleveland Scene)
In a letter filed yesterday, Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH) demanded that Cleveland Law Director Barbara Langhenry compel city council clerk Patricia Britt to accept the 6,350 signatures that CLASH submitted last month with the hopes of putting a lead-safe ordinance on the November ballot.
Those signatures were rejected by council because the petitions failed to include an all-caps disclaimer about election falsification required by the Ohio Revised Code.
CLASH has maintained, and reiterated in its letter to Langhenry, (attached below), that the City Charter, not the Ohio Revised Code, dictates the local government response. It has cited numerous legal precedents, including the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in the Q Deal referendum dispute, to argue that Britt must accept the petitions, regardless of their form or substance. More…