One of three recall petitions for Cottage Grove City Councilors has gathered enough signatures to move forward to the next step in the process, according to elections officials. But it hasn’t qualified for the ballot, yet.
Petitioners for the group “Save the Grove” failed to submit enough valid signatures to recall Councilors Jon Stinnett or Chalice Savage. But, on the first pass, the submission to recall Councilor Mike Fleck had eight more signatures than was needed.
Lane County Clerk Dena Dawson said her office now has 30 days to verify whether enough of those signatures are valid.
“There’s a lot of interest from the City of Cottage Grove and folks down in that area to observe the process," she told KLCC, "so we’ve added a tentative schedule of signature verification to our website, and we plan to begin signature verification November 17th, and we plan to conclude the 21st.”
On its Facebook page, “Save the Grove” says some of the reasons for the recall are safety, sanitation and drug use issues related to recently designated homeless camps, and residents not feeling represented. Cottage Grove has a mayor and six city councilors.
Dawson said if the signatures check out, Councilor Fleck has five days to resign. If he doesn’t resign, the recall election will need to occur within the next 35 days, which she said would likely be Tuesday, December 26.
More information is available on the Lane County Elections site, at tab #14 here.
Note: Recall petitioner Michael Borke is a speaker on this week’s City Club of Eugene, which looks at how recall elections should be used. The program airs Monday night at 7 on KLCC, and will also be available on the KLCC website.
