Reform advocates file more petitions

8/29/2012

A group that wants to reform Lucas County government through a ballot question to go before voters in November submitted additional petitions Tuesday to the Lucas County Board of Elections.

The group needs 5,719 more valid signatures to get on the ballot; it turned in 7,093 signatures, said Bob Reinbolt, one of the leaders of the effort.

"That give us a bit of a cushion," said Mr. Reinbolt, who said the group is cautiously optimistic that the measure would make the ballot.

The Better Lucas County group aims to reorganize county government from the current row-office form to a county executive system.

Under the proposed reform plan, 10 current elected county offices would be converted to appointed jobs. Voters would elect a county executive and a nine-member county council.

In June, the group turned in 22,195 signatures; well over half of those -- 13,431 signatures -- were invalid, however, leaving only 8,764 that were considered valid by the board of elections.

Thousands of the signatures were thrown out because of petition circulators' mistakes that could have been easily fixed, such as petitions lacking correct signature totals.

The group needs 14,483 valid voter signatures to get on the November ballot.