How to Present Your Petition

1. Make sure you qualify. You must be a citizen and resident of the City of Phoenix. The City checks.
2. Pick a Formal meeting. Petitions are presented during Citizen Comments at a Formal City Council meeting. Check the City’s meeting calendar for dates.
3. Sign your Request for Council Action.
4. Present it. During Citizen Comments, say that you are presenting a citizen petition and hand it to the Clerk. You will have up to three minutes. If you participate virtually, email your petition to the City’s Council Support office the same day.

Why the Council won’t vote that night

State open-meeting law bars the Council from acting on anything raised during Citizen Comments. Your petition goes on a later agenda, under the City’s own agenda category for “action on citizen petitions previously submitted.” The Charter’s fifteen-day clock is what keeps it from waiting indefinitely.

How the City screens petitions

Before scheduling a vote, the City’s Law Department checks four things: that you are a Phoenix resident, that your petition asks the Council to take action, that the action is within the Council’s authority, and that it doesn’t duplicate a request the Council acted on in the past year. Our templates are built to meet each one: a residency statement, a request for a recorded vote on a specific measure, measure types the Council has authority to adopt, and a stop on goals it doesn’t.