Youngstown Council Sending Anti-Fracking Amendment to Ballot

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UPDATE:

The Youngstown Vindicator has some further detail on this story:
“If you do the petition process correctly, we have no alternative but for council to pass it and send it to the [Mahoning County] Board of Elections,” said Law Director Anthony Farris. “There’s not really an alternative.” 
If the ballot initiative is approved, it’s unenforceable, he said.
“It’s in conflict with a field of regulations in which the state has” control, Farris said. “It would be illegal to enforce it.” 
But the state attorney general and secretary of state offices have said it still must be on the ballot if the initiative has enough valid signatures despite the legal issue, Farris said.
Read the whole article here.

From the Associated Press:
YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO: The Youngstown city council approved an anti-fracking amendment for the May 7 primary election ballot — even though there are doubts about whether it could be enforced.
The Vindicator newspaper reports that the council on Wednesday night approved the charter amendment for the ballot. It would ban the gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the city.
Law Director Anthony Farris said the council had no choice but to move the proposal to the ballot after a group called Frack Free Mahoning Valley collected about 4,000 signatures calling for it. The group needs just 1,562 valid signatures to get the measure to the voters.
Because the state regulates gas drilling, city officials said the ban would probably be unenforceable, although members of the activist group disagree.

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