GREENFIELD — The signatures have been certified.
Of the 452 total signatures brought to the city clerk’s office Wednesday and Thursday, 397 signatures have been certified, according to City Clerk Kathy Scott.
Steven Ronhave, who served as a Town Councilor from 2012 to 2015, submitted a petition in protest of the City Council’s March vote to approve financing for a new public library.
The petition needed 319 signatures from registered voters who resided in Greenfield, which is the equivalent of 10 percent of the voters from the last biennial election in November 2017. The deadline for filing the petition was 30 days from the council’s March 20 vote.
The Greenfield City Council will take up what will amount to a re-vote on the library at its May meeting, before it potentially goes to the ballot box this November.
On Wednesday the mayor signed the $9.4 million grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for a new public library.
The petition may now lead to a citywide vote at this November’s mayoral election on whether residents once and for all want to approve a $19.5 million public library.
The council will have the ability to either decide it doesn’t want a new library after all or if it wants to send it to the ballot box in November. However, the council does not have the ability to simply reaffirm it wants a new library without putting it to the voters.
In the instance that Greenfield voters agree that the city should finance a new public library then plans will continue on undisturbed.
If residents vote against the library, the city will have to give back the state grant money with interest. The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners will issue its first allotment of the grant, $1.9 million, shortly.
Mayor William Martin said he plans on placing that money into an account that will accrue interest.