03 City Council Min. 03-21-05 - Laserfiche WebLink

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SPECIAL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL, CITY OF PARIS March 21, 2005 1. The City Council of the City of Paris met in special session at 6 :00 P. M. Monday, March 21, 2005 at the Love Civic Center, 2025 South Collegiate Drive, Paris, Texas. Present: Mayor: Curtis Fendley Council members: Jim Bell, Mayor Pro Tern, Scott Biard, Mary Ann Fisher, Don Wilson, Karen Wilkerson, Rick Poston City staff: City Manager Tony N. Williams, City Attorney Larry W. Schenk, City Clerk Janice Ellis 2. Presentation by the City Manager and further discussion regarding the process to repeal Civil Service for the City of Paris Fire Department. Tony Williams went through the procedural requirements under Texas Law to repeal civil service in the firefighter category as follows: Repeal is initiated by a petition filed by the citizens and must be signed by 10% of the qualified voters of the jurisdiction. We have 14,001 register voters; therefore, the minimum amount of signatures needed is 1,401. These signatures must be verified by the City Clerk as being bona fide city registrants qualified to vote. Each signer will need to put down their date of birth and residence address and/or the signer's voter registration number. Each signer has to put the date in which they signed on the petition. The validity of the signatures goes off in 180 days. If you start the petition drive and you do not complete it within 180 days, those who signed begin to dwindle. Upon validation of the petition, the petition would be presented to you which would compel you to call for an election. The date of that election cannot be earlier than 62 days from the date in which you made the proclamation calling for that election nor less than 75 days from the date the petition is turned in. The next available date is the second Saturday in September, which is September 10,2005. If you do not meet that time line, the next uniform date is the second Tuesday in November, which is November 8, 2005. Councilman Wilson inquired as to whether or not he could sign the petition as a councilman. Tony advised him that he could. Councilman Wilson wanted to know if any employee could sign a petition and Tony advised him they could do so.