Oroville Municipal Code Art. XXXVI Initiative Measure to Be

Editor's note: This article was added in 2000.

Sec. 1. Title.

This measure shall be known as the People's Choice Prison Initiative (People's Initiative).

Sec. 2. Findings.

In order to maintain the quality of life as sought by the residents of the City of Oroville, it is hereby accepted as a right and an obligation:

To preserve the current level of health and safety services and other welfare issues as they relate to the residents of the City of Oroville;
To maintain the right to an orderly and evenly distributed rate of growth, keeping within the ability of the city to accommodate growth without straining available resources, be they provided by man or be they natural;
To be able to preserve the quality of public services, health services, social workers, sewage treatment plants and landfill adequacy, which are often threatened by excessive and rapid population growth impacts.

In keeping within the process prescribed in the California Election Code, the voters of the City of Oroville hereby exercise their right to the Initiative process whereby a constituency may obtain the will of the voters to decide on important issues which impact them directly.
Therefore the people of the City of Oroville do ordain as follows:

Sec. 3. City of Oroville's boundaries, etc.

That the entire City of Oroville, and all the territory included within the city boundaries are hereby zoned prison-free by the enactment of this, the People's Initiative.

Sec. 4. Prison Initiative enacted.

Should this initiative be enacted, any consideration of prison or any facility that has a function of incarcerating or housing prisoners shall be put forth on the ballot for approval by the voters disclosing to them the following:

A. The proposed location of the prison;

B. The type of prison (e.g. maximum security, minimum security, etc.);

C. The size of prison;

D. How the various factors impacting the public shall be mitigated;

E. A commitment from the state, federal or any other agency that they will pay for the increased cost of direct and indirect services that result from the prison and that any cost incurred by the enforcement of this Section (4), Subparagraph (e) shall be borne by them;

F. Any and all potential changes to the disclosed information.

Sec. 5. Transmittal to State.

Upon adoption of this initiative, the city council shall immediately transmit a copy of the initiative to the Governor of the State of California, the California Department of Corrections, and all other appropriate state agencies.

Sec. 6. Severability.

If any subsection, part, subpart, paragraph, subparagraph, clause or phrase of this initiative or any amendments or revision of this initiative is for any reason held to be invalid, the remaining portions will not be affected, but will remain in full force and in effect.

Sec. 7. Amendment.

No part of this initiative shall be amended or repealed except by passage of a ballot measure approved by a majority of voting.