Members of the petition committee with available petitions to sign at Shelter 8 at City Park on Wednesday. (Photo by Amber Phipps)

PARKERSBURG – Members of the petition committee seeking a referendum on the ordinance that approved Parkersburg’s sanitation contract with Waste Management continue going door-to-door seeking more signatures Wednesday.

The group has gathered each day since Monday when they received information from the city regarding the details on why 862 signatures out of the 2,953 they submitted were deemed invalid.

A member on the petition committee who wishes to remain under the pseudonym name Jack Jones, said once the committee received the information, they immediately began going door-to-door for more signatures.

“It’s been a little confusing to the residents because we have to go back and get everyone’s signatures again,” said Jones. “We have all new volunteers who are out collecting signatures.”

Jones said they’re making sure each signature is a resident of Parkersburg by asking them questions when they knock on their door.

She said there’s been some confusion with the colored papers provided by the city but according to their attorney through the ACLU of West Virginia, they can use the previous affidavits from the first signature collection process.

“The attorney called us and said the judge didn’t require colored petitions,” she said. “We went to the library, made our own copies and started taking signatures yesterday (Tuesday) morning.”

Jones said they’ve been going door-to-door and more people have been interested in signing. She said the petition committee will be set up from noon to 8 p.m. at Shelter 8 at City Park until April 15.

The petition committee is also stationed at Das Rookhaus, J&M Bookstore, Cafe Joseph and there will be a larger signing event at City Park on Saturday.

“All the petition does is put this on the ballot so everybody has a vote on whether they want waste management or not,” said Jones.

Alexander Gaaserud, who is running in the republican primary for U.S. Senate was at City Park while signatures were being collected Wednesday.

“It’s about time that Parkersburg residents have a direct say in something going on in the city because the city government does not want to hear from the people and it’s unacceptable,” he said.

Jones said the next steps will be to obtain as many signatures as they can to be turned in by the deadline at 4:30 p.m. April 16. She said once those are turned in, the committee will wait for the Wood County Circuit Court to review the signatures.

The process is tedious since the clerk has to check each name for validation. Once all of the names have been validated, the committee will hear back from the clerk.

Jones said it’s a long process and she’s “pretty sure they’ll (the city) be taking us to court.”

City Attorney Blaine Myers said the committee was notified Monday by the Wood County Circuit Court with a detailed list of the names and the reasons for their invalidity.

“The majority were people that signed who weren’t registered to vote or weren’t residents of the city,” said Myers. “There was a smaller number of signatures whose addresses didn’t match their names.”

Upon review of the signatures submitted by the committee in February, the Wood County Clerk’s Office deemed 862 were invalid.

The petitioners filed a motion with the Wood County Circuit Court which requested that the city provide more information about what signatures were invalid and why. Once that information was received, the petitioners would have 10 days to collect the additional signatures.

They would need more than 672 signatures gathered to reach the required minimum of 2,763 valid signatures.

As stated in previous reports, in order for the petition to be certified, there must be at least 2,763 signatures of registered voters in the city. The number equates to 15% of registered votes in the 2024 election.

City Attorney Blaine Myers said he does not believe the ordinance is subject to referendum provision of the charter because it involves the allocation of money.

Jones said if that were the case, almost all of the ordinances wouldn’t be subject to referendum because it usually deals with money.

Amber Phipps can be reached at aphipps@newsandsentinel.com