A grassroots community effort has prompted the Independence City Council to overturn its pit bull ban.On Monday night, the council voted 5-2 to lift the ban.That decision came after volunteers gathered roughly 5700 signatures on petitions to lift the ban beginning in April, far more signatures than the approximately 3200 they needed to get the issue on the ballot for voters to have their say.“It was just a matter of getting the council to be as convinced as we were. And when we started to put this together, the overwhelming support from community members here in Independence got to the cross the finish line and left them really without an option,” Cody Atkinson, one of the volunteers who gathered petition signatures, said.The only other option was to put the measure on the ballot at a cost of up to $200,000 for the city.Mayor Rory Rowland asked voters in April who voted in the marijuana tax referendum their positions on lifting a pit bull ban.“It was clear from the feedback that we got from citizens that they wanted this ban overturned. Now we had to act because of the petition process,” Rowland said.Before the vote, Councilman Mike Steinmeyer argued the petition called for a vote of Independence residents.He believes as a matter of trust for what people signed with those petitions, that vote should’ve taken place.“We have failed pit bulls, we have failed other breeds, and we have failed our community with safety,” Steinmeyer said.With the council voting in favor of lifting the ban, the Independence City Manager will now review the city’s dangerous dog ordinances affecting all breeds.The plan is to improve them within two months.Independence residents will be able to begin to adopt pit bulls on Aug. 4 to give the council time to make those changes.