EAST CLEVELAND -- Petitions have circulated since April asking East Cleveland residents to support a vote to approve a commission that will study the pros and cons of being annexed to Cleveland.
But collecting the needed signatures is taking longer than some expected.
That's because state law raises the bar for an issue that could lead to abolishing a longtime city.
East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton is pushing the effort.
It requires gathering one-fourth of the signatures of voters who took part in the last mayor's election.
It means gathering about 600 valid signatures.
But it's not just a number of John or Jane Hancock autographs of registered voters that must be obtained. The signers must have actually voted in the past election.
So petition circulators must be detectives. They check names against a roster of mayoral election voters.
"That is an incredibly difficult take to first identify the actual people who voted, and if we find them, ask them to sign the petition," said Mayor Norton.
Norton says it reduces the universe of possible signers from 13,000 people to a subset of 2,100 people.
As of late last week, Norton said 450 checked signatures had been obtained.
There has also been a switch to paid circulators instead of volunteers.
He predicts the petitions may be submitted late this week or next week. But supporters want to make sure they've rounded up the needed signatures before turning them in.
