A petition to vote on Salina charter ordinance No. 39, which would increase the bonding authority of the proposed downtown field house from $4.5 million to $7 million, fell short of the 518 verified signatures needed.

According to the Saline County Clerk’s office, 639 signatures were received.

Of those, 332 were verified. Another 175 were disregarded because an address was not on the petition. If those 175 were added, the number of signatures still falls short at 507. Other signatures were disregarded because the signer was not a registered voter, an incorrect address was listed, or the signer lived outside the Salina city limits.

Saline County Commissioner John Price, one of the petition’s organizers, indicated that he wants to see which signatures were disregarded. “We had over 600 and I will have to look at those,” he said.

In a letter to Salina City Clerk Shandi Wicks, Saline County Clerk Don Merriman said, “The required number of signatures to submit the matter to a vote is 518. Of the signatures submitted, we were able to verify 332. In reviewing the petition, we have found 2 pages refer to Charter Ordinance 38 which included 8 signatures in which those 8 were duplicate on other pages so were already verified. Additionally 175 signatures are on pages in which the circulators, Ray Hruska and Paul Hemmy, did not include their residence address as required by statute. The above referenced signatures have been disregarded.”

The City Attorney’s office said the court challenge by the City of Salina questioning the validity of the petition would proceed until the signature count is officially validated. A court date on that challenge has been set for May 18th.