A petition to repeal the pit bull dog ban in Salina was presented to the Salina City Manager’s Office Monday.

The referendum petition would require the city commission to either pass an ordinance to repeal sections of the Salina City Code related to dog Breed Specific Regulations, or call for a special election for voter consideration of the ordinance.

For the petition to be valid, the Saline County Election Officer must validate the signatures in accordance with state law.

The petition needs to be signed by electors equal to 25% of those who voted in the preceding regular City election.

The next step is for the Saline County Election Officer to certify the number of signatures. Signatures can be rejected for reasons including unregistered voters, mismatched names or signatures, canceled voter registrations, and incorrect districts among other things.

The pit bull ban was enacted by the city commission back in 2004. Prior to the law being passed there were 24 pit bull bite incidents in a two year span, between 2003 – 2004. Since that time, over the next 15 years there were 17.

In December of 2019 the issue was revisited again. At that time Salina City Commissioners voted 3 – 2 to not overturn the breed specific ordinance which makes the dog illegal to have within city limits.

A similar petition was submitted in September of last year, and fell 22 signatures short of the required number.