Dear Ridgewood Community,
Yesterday, July 6th, we submitted 570 citizen petitions to our local clerks, Heather Mailander and Donna Jackson. In addition, we notified the Bergen County clerk’s office.
Below is a timeline for the process that will bring our petition to a BINDING question on this November’s ballot.
- We were required to submit a minimum of 410 petitions. Given that some of the petitions will be rejected due to signature or residency issues, we submitted 570 to ensure that we would reach the required minimum for the question to be placed on the ballot.
- We were cognizant to keep our number of submissions below 615. Submission of 615 petitions could trigger a special election, which is the last thing we would hope to do!
- The Village Clerk now has until July 26th to certify the petitions meaning she will confirm that the signatures match the signer’s voting cards and that the signers live in their stated addresses.
- The clerk must return any “deficient” petitions to us and we then have 10 days to cure, meaning we can ask the signers to correct any errors or we can collect additional signatures, if needed.
- If necessary, the Village Clerk then has until August 11, to recertify additional petitions.
- Once certified, the Village Manager presents the certified petitions to the Village Council at the next public meeting as a “first reading.”
- At the following public meeting (by September 1), the Village Council can either vote to approve an ordinance moving our Council and BOE elections to November, or to put this issue as a binding question on the November 2020 ballot.
We are hopeful that the process will play out fairly and that this binding initiative will appear as written, inclusive of the interpretative statement, on the November 2020 ballot. In that election, the Ridgewood voters will have the opportunity to decide if our elections should be consolidated.
If the voters vote YES on this question, the decision is BINDING and the elections will be consolidated to November.
Thank you to everyone who signed a petition and helped us move our initiative to the ballot. We hope all of you continue to follow our efforts and help spread the word to your friends and neighbors.
One Village, One Vote!
Be sure to sign up for emails at www.onevillageonevote.com in order to receive all of the latest information and learn how you can help support this change in our Village. We look forward to connecting with you.
Respectfully,
Bob Fuhrman
Matthew Lindenberg
Stacey Loscalzo
Deborah Steinbaum
Siobhan Crann Winograd