Who Will Be the Next Victim of the Grand Bounce? A nonpartisan, nonjudgmental look at the “Hair-Trigger” Form of Government
In April, Rios was charged with pimping, pandering and rape. Prosecutors allege he persuaded or encouraged four women and two underage girls to work for him as prostitutes. Rios also faces attempted voluntary manslaughter charges. He is accused of shooting at two people who he said followed him home after a confrontation at a Moreno Valley bar.
• Number 1 -- This amendment would strengthen the city's recall provisions, requiring those seeking a recall of a council member to have a legitimate reason for the recall, such as incompetency, official misconduct or malfeasance in office. The reason for the recall would have to be prominently listed on each page of a petition voters are asked to sign.
This obviously stems from the misguided efforts by residents of Wellborn and political opportunists to recall several members of the College Station council over their vote to annex Wellborn.
The proposed amendment also would extend some of the timing on recall requests. The city secretary now has five days to certify the signatures on recall petitions; the change would give the city secretary 15 business days to forward the petitions to the council. Also, current provisions give council members facing recall five days to resign or force an election on the recall. The proposed change gives the council members seven calendar days.
• Number 2 -- This amendment also stems from the Wellborn recall attempt and would clarify a special election to fill a vacancy on the council if the mayor is no longer on the council. Under the proposal, the remaining council members would have to call such an election. If all council members are removed, then it would fall to, in order, the city manager, the city secretary, the city attorney or the presiding judge of the municipal court to call the election.
Information from the N.C. School of Government provides a list of the following towns with recall capability, but Ronda is not on this list.
They are Aberdeen, Asheville, Cajah’s Mountain, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, Foxfire, Greensboro, Hickory, Lewisville, Lumberton, Oak Island, Pinebluff, Pleasant Garden, Raleigh, Randleman, River Bend, Statesville, Troutman and Winston-Salem. Recall is also permitted for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board. No counties have recall for their commissioners.
The recall of an elected official in Georgia is a three-step process, the first of which is to apply for a recall petition, to name a chairperson, cite a reason for the recall efforts and provide the signatures of 100 people who were registered to vote in the preceding election.
Recall efforts in Georgia must fall under at least one of five categories. \
If the application is found sufficient by the elections office, the recall petition can go forward and will require the signatures of 30 percent of the active voters registered and eligible to vote in the preceding election. In Fayette County, that number will require more than 21,000 signatures. Those signatures must be obtained within 45 days of the time the petition was issued. If found sufficient, it will trigger a recall election.
The most recent officeholder to be recalled was state Rep. Paul Scott, R-Grand Blanc, who was ousted by voters last year.
In 2009, Flint Mayor Don Williamson resigned while facing a recall election.
Oakland County's last recall election, in 2003, targeted then-Pontiac Mayor Willie Payne, who won, according to Joe Rozell, the county's elections director.
Ward Shrake, who told The Range he is seeking the recall not because of “any one specific thing that any one specific commissioner had done, or not done,” but rather “the slow realization that I couldn’t come up with any specific positive things that any of them had actually done, individually or as a group...”
While state law specifically includes the recall option in the manager-commissioner form of government under which Raton operates, the law makes no reference to allowing for recall in a mayor-council form of government.
State law sets the required number of registered city voter signatures for a recall petition — in order to bring about a recall election — at the greater of the following: more than 20 percent of the average number of voters who voted in the last four regular municipal elections or more than 20 percent of the number of voters who voted in the last regular municipal election.
In Raton, the average number of voters who voted in the last four regular municipal elections is 967.3, producing a 20-percent mark of 193.5, giving a rounded number of 194 signatures necessary on the petition against any individual commissioner. A total of 939 voters — 20 percent of which is 187.8 — voted in the last regular municipal election in March.The recall requires not only a majority of votes, but that the votes equal in favor of the recall equal or top the recalled officials winning total in the last election.