ADAMS TWP — Adams Township is officially fighting a referendum to reduce the board of supervisors from five seats to three.

Township solicitor Mike Gallagher filed action on Wednesday asking Butler County Court Judge S. Michael Yeager to strike the referendum from the November ballot.

Gallagher, acting on behalf of the five Adams supervisors, said the referendum is unconstitutional because it would terminate all five supervisors seats if passed.

He said the state Constitution says supervisors can only be removed by the state General Assembly for reasonable cause, and then only after due notice and a full hearing.

Also, Gallagher said the state Supreme Court about 10 years ago ruled that recall petitions are unconstitutional.

The county commissioners on Aug. 27 approved placing the referendum on the November ballot in Adams. Commissioner Bill McCarrier, board chairman, said the commissioners had no choice but to approve the referendum.

The impetus of the referendum came in July, when Adams resident Charles Clark presented the county Bureau of Elections with a petition containing 485 signatures. The petition sought to reduce the number of supervisors from five to three.

Clark said he gathered the signatures because the sitting supervisors refused to listen to residents stating their cases during the previous several months regarding opposition to the placement of shale gas wells within one mile of the Mars schools.

The supervisors voted at their Aug. 11 meeting to have Gallagher ask for the referendum to be struck from the November ballot.

A similar referendum passed by Center Township voters was overturned by a county judge in 2013 because it would have ended the supervisors’ terms prematurely.

“I think our chances are very good, given the Supreme Court ruling and the Center Township case,” Gallagher said on Wednesday.

He said he asked Yeager to expedite his ruling in anticipation of the November election. Gallagher said Yeager was the judge who made the ruling in the Center Township case.

Gallagher said the county and the bureau of elections are the defendants in the case because they carry out elections.

County solicitor Mike English was unavailable for comment on Wednesday afternoon.