Petition flaw kills Sebring charter-amendment proposal

YOUNGSTOWN — Despite having enough valid signatures, a citizen-initiative charter amendment proposal in Sebring asking voters to fire its village manager without a severance package is unlikely to appear on the ballot.

That’s because one petition with 31 valid signatures was rejected by the Mahoning County Board of Elections because the person getting people to sign their names didn’t write the number of signatures on the petition’s “circulator statement,” said Thomas McCabe, the board’s deputy director.

That’s considered a “fatal error” under state law, and the valid signatures on that petition cannot be counted, McCabe said.

Officially, the four-member board of elections would have to vote to disqualify the ballot measure. In other cases such as this, the board has rejected ballot initiatives that don’t include the number because of the “fatal error” law.

High levels of lead in the village’s water garnered criticism and national attention, particularly when it was discovered that village officials were aware of the problem for at least five months before the public learned about it in January.

Those circulating the petitions in Sebring needed 97 valid signatures – a number equal to 10 percent of those in the village who voted in the last general election. There are 86 valid signatures on the four other petitions submitted by the committee seeking to ask voters to fire Village Manager Richard D. Giroux.

If the 31 signatures on the one petition ruled invalid were counted, there would be more than enough names to have the issue appear on the Nov. 8 ballot.

For the complete story, read Tuesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com