Editor's note:
This story was updated to add in voices of the petition supporters.
On November’s ballot, there will be no charter amendment that could have changed how the City of Akron hires police and fire chiefs.
More than a week after a coalition submitted more than 7,595 signatures in hopes of adding a charter amendment to November’s ballot, the Summit County Board of Elections could not verify that enough of the people who signed were registered Akron voters.
BOE Deputy Director Pete Zeigler told Signal Akron on Thursday afternoon that only 4,187 signatures were valid — 45% of the signatures were rejected.
The coalition needed to surpass 4,862 signatures.
“They did turn in a lot, but they just had bad signatures,” said Akron City Council President Margo Sommerville. “It’s really important — really, really important — when people are out collecting signatures that you have a good team of people on the streets that are not just grabbing every and anybody to sign.”
If enough signatures were validated by the BOE, City Council would have needed to hold a special meeting by Friday to approve its placement on the ballot.
Akron NAACP President Judi Hill, a proponent of the charter amendment who publicly advocated for external candidates to be considered in the recent police chief search, said she didn’t view Thursday’s news as a “loss” but rather as an “opportunity to figure it out.”
“I think we go back to the table, we strategize, we try to figure out what our next steps are,” Hill said. “I’m disappointed, obviously, and I’m trying to figure out why (this happened) when I know we had quite a few signatures.”
The charter amendment would have superseded a previously little-known state law that the City of Akron’s law department discovered earlier this year amid a national search for a new police chief: Only internal candidates can be considered for chief and deputy chief positions in the city’s fire and police departments.
The Committee to Improve Police-Community Relations started the signature-gathering effort last month after City Council rejected legislation to allow for external candidates for the chief and deputy chief positions in the Akron Police Department and Akron Fire Department.
“We put a valiant effort together – I’m really proud of that,” said Pastor Robert DeJournett, one of the petition’s lead signatories. “We didn’t get what we wanted in a short amount of time but we were very, very close. I’m encouraged.”
DeJournett said he’s not giving up on the effort to “cast a wider net” for police and fire leadership hiring and he hopes that people involved in the effort to amend the city charter “will continue to come together as a community to ensure that our voices are heard by the influencers-to-be.”
