San Angelo City Council Rejects Pleas to Put Sanctuary City Issue on May Ballot

SAN ANGELO – San Angelo City Council members Tuesday rejected requests from the pro-life group supporting a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance to put the issue on the May ballot, instead voting to extend the legal process which pushes back the ballot initiative to the November election.  

Petitioners had gathered the right amount of signatures, over 1,512, and presented a duly certified petition to designate San Angelo as a Sanctuary City for the Unborn which the council accepted Tuesday.  

The council now has to publish a copy of the ballot proposition in the newspaper of record before a public hearing can be held.  The proposition is 17 pages long according to city staff.  Once the proposition is published, the council must hold a public hearing where it can either accept the proposition or amend it and create the ordinance, or reject the proposition.  

If the council rejects the proposition, the petition committee can then require the proposed ordinance be placed on the next available ballot.  

The council Tuesday could have voted to hold the public hearing at their regularly scheduled council meeting Feb. 15 which would have allowed the measure to be placed on the May ballot.  

Instead, the council voted four to one to hold the public hearing at the March 1, 2022 regular council meeting which pushes the ballot initiative to the November general election.  

We will have more on this story later.