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Friday, July 30, 2010 | Serving Del Rio and Val Verde County: Since 1929
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Changes in recall procedures
Published January 27, 2010
Two proposed changes to the city’s recall election procedure will go before the voters in May.
City council members Tuesday night unanimously approved an ordinance calling a special election so Del Rio voters can approve or reject the two changes.
The special election will be part of the May 8 general election to fill the position of mayor and three other seats on the city council.
Both the general election on the council seats and the special election on the proposed changes to the recall election procedures in the city charter will be held on the same day. The candidates will be on one ballot and the propositions will be on another ballot.
Del Rio Mayor Efrain Valdez said the council made the decision not to hold the special election on the two proposed changes to the city charter on a separate day “so as not to give the taxpayers the burden of two elections.”
The vote on the ordinance to call the elections was taken after the council held a public hearing at the start of Tuesday night’s meeting to ask for final public input on the proposed changes to the charter.
Three persons spoke against at least one of the proposed changes, which requires a larger number of signatures on the petition forcing the council to order a recall election, and two members of The Border Organization urged the council to approve the ordinance.
Members of The Border Organization, a local grassroots citizens’ activist group, called on the council to call a special election on the changes to the recall election procedures last year, and members of that organization told the council their desire for the change was spurred by a failed recall attempt of Councilwoman Lisa Cadena Craig.
Border Organization members decried the attempted recall of Cadena Craig as frivolous.
The first proposition to be considered by the city voters in May will, if approved, require the city charter to be amended “to require a recall petition be printed in English and in Spanish and to state in visually conspicuous letters and font size that the petition is for the recall of a certain named city official.”
The ballot will then include the proposed amendment to the charter as it will appear if approved and voters will place an “X” in a square indicating whether they are for or against the measure.
The second proposition to be considered by city voters will, if approved, require that the city charter be amended “to increase the number of signatures that are needed in order to require a recall election.”
The ballot will then include the exact language of the proposed amendment and ask voters to place an “X” in square indicating whether they are for or against the measure.
After an attempt by Councilman Mike Wrob and Councilwoman Tina Martinez to remove the second proposition from the ordinance failed, the council unanimously approved the ordinance setting the general and special elections.
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