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Petitions seeking to shift the City’s form of government to a ward system and to establish a residency clause for public employees was received Thursday, Municipal Clerk Cindy Dye confirmed.

The petitions are the work of an organized group of 25 who obtained some 400 signatures of support for each petition, member and spokesman Tracy Rogers said.

The first petition, a residency mandate identified as Empower Asbury Park, was crafted in part by James Famularo, who perished in a July 9 fire at his Park Avenue home, Rogers said.

“He did the majority of the work on the residency ordinance prior to his death,” Rogers said. “It is a part of his legacy. James was on the residency petition but due to his accidental death we had to quickly revise it.”

Resident Felicia Simmons, a former Board of Education member, signed her name to affidavit of circulator, and Famularo, Anthony Remy, Catherine Plummer, Mabin Womble and Lester Green are among those who pledged their support.

The petition asks November 2018 voters to support a shift to a three ward system, each with one council representative. The remaining two seats would be elected at large, one of which would be designated and voted for under the title of Mayor, according to the group’s attorney Renee Steinhagen, executive director of New Jersey Appleseed Public Issues Law Center. If adopted, the City Council will be elected pursuant to partisan elections, including June primaries, and by law, there will be no run-off elections.

Dye said she is awaiting word from the municipality’s attorneys on whether or not such a petition can move forward.

“We changed our form of government in 2015 and I don’t think we can change it again for another ten years,” she said. “But I’m waiting on confirmation.”

With the petition identified as the Public Employee Residency Requirement Ordinance, the Committee Of A More Fair Equitable Asbury Park, asks for ‘improved safeguards and regulations to ensure that Asbury Park residents are preferred for employment with the City Of Asbury Park before nonresidents are hired.’

Dye said the municipality already aims to give preference to residents but does not believe the municipality can mandate residency as outlined by the petitioners. She has submitted the document for vetting to City attorneys.

In the written statement, Steinhagen said the proposed amendments provide specific criteria to strengthen current requirements and aims to stimulate the city’s local economy, prevent sham attempts to establish residency, ensure that City employees maintain their residency while employed, and require nonresidents who are employed or hired by the City of Asbury Park, to move or relocate within the city limits.

Dye said 273 signatures from registered local voters are needed to support the petitions moving forward. The number represents 10 percent of those who voted in the last general election.

Asbury Park is a 1.4 square mile community with a population of 14,945, according to a 2015 U.S Census Report. Of that population, 41 percent are black, 32 percent Hispanic, and 24 percent are white. According to the report, 32 percent are living below the poverty line. The per capita income is $23,761 and the average home value is $308,600, with only 20 percent of the population listed as having obtained bachelor’s degrees.

Below, find a written statement from the group in its entirety:

The Committee of A More Fair Equitable Asbury Park, made up of a diverse group of residents, feels that issues facing quadrants of the city have been neglected or made less inclusive to city matters by the council.

The Committee has created a petition to add a referendum to the November ballot to amend the current form of government from an at-large representation to maintaining an at-large with ward representation. As we are not asking to change the total number of council members, we feel having a ward system will give citizens a more responsive voice to all city residents.

As Asbury Park is being promoted as a thriving community, many long-term residents have been left out of that success. As the council has prioritized the beach front and Cookman Ave, other areas of the city remain neglected. One visible area is the south-west quadrant of the city with a lack of representation on boards and committees with residents being pushed out because of increasing rents and gentrification, substandard living conditions, the highest unemployment rate in the city, and with shooting beginning to rise, shows a lack of representation in this community, which needs a responsive leadership. We have also heard the concerns of other areas of the city in relationship to quality of life issues.

As we believe the current and past councils have done some good things in the community, we want all areas to benefit. We feel that a Ward System would be a better fit to assure that more details are focused on issues that affect residents in neglected areas of Asbury Park. As we feel this a moral and ethical issue: all residents of Asbury Park deserve the same equitable representation, and we hope all the resident of Asbury Park feel the same way.

As we wish not to leave anyone out, we will be organizing town hall meetings throughout the city to discuss all issues, and the ballot question for November.

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