Press Release: We the People of Cheltenham file Petitions to Simplify Initiative and Referendum in their Home Rule Community

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

We the People of Cheltenham (WtPoC) announces that the 2010 Petition Campaign to simplify the initiative and referendum process for residents of Cheltenham, has come to a successful close.

(Wyncote, Pa)— The We the People of Cheltenham 2010 Petition Campaign has come to a successful close with more than enough signature endorsements to qualify for ballot consideration.  Under law, the campaign can only be carried out over a specified 49 days prior to the upcoming election, beginning on Tuesday, June 15 and ending on Tuesday, August 3. Throughout June and July and the first days of August, We the People of Cheltenham volunteers knocked on doors, attended community events, and solicited signatures from neighbors and local friends. The group filed the completed signature petitions with the Montgomery County Board of Elections on August 3.

    The Board of Elections needs only to verify the authenticity of the signatures and edit the ballot question for final wording and the question will be placed on the November ballot for the consideration of all the registered voters in Cheltenham Township.

   Cheltenham is a “home rule” township.  This means it creates its own laws on any topic not exclusively regulated by the state or federal government.  The set of local laws that govern the township are collectively referred to as the Township’s charter.  The charter may be amended either by action of the elected government officials or through a citizen petition.  This ballot question is presented as the result of a citizen petition.  The amendment proposes a change in the procedures for citizens to place an ordinance on the ballot through the initiative petitioning process, or for them to require that an existing ordinance be changed by the Board of Commissioners or put to a vote of the people.

The proposed amendment reads as follows:

§ C1409. Procedures.

A.    Initiative and referendum procedures shall be initiated upon petition signed by seven percent (7%) of the number of registered electors of the township who voted in the preceding gubernatorial election.

     Specifically, this amendment would make it easier for citizens of Cheltenham, through the petitioning process, to propose new ordinances and for registered voters to either accept or reject them, and it would make it easier for citizens of Cheltenham, through the petitioning process, to require the Board of Commissioners to review and change an existing ordinance, or if they refuse to change it, to allow the voters to decide if it should be changed.

     The ballot question that We the People of Cheltenham supports for the November 2010 election is:

    Shall the Cheltenham Township Charter be amended to change Article XIV, Section C 1409 (Procedures for Initiative and Referendum), subsection A, the first sentence, to reduce the required number of petition signatures from thirty percent (30%) of registered electors in the Township to seven percent (7%) of the number of registered electors who voted in the preceding gubernatorial election?

    We the People of Cheltenham wants to thank the Cheltenham Community for supporting this effort. And for taking the time to take a position on a question that makes democracy a bit more accessible to the citizens of Cheltenham and the organizations to which they belong. This amendment, if voted in, is a tool to make it easier for community groups to present their questions to the entire township electorate.  Thank you Cheltenham!!