As instructed, Councilman John King’s attorney Morgan Bentley has filed an order to have King’s recall petition tossed off the ballot. The order is based on the direction of Judge Kyle Cohen for Bentley to focus on the 3rd accusation against King.
Here is the petition Bill Veach and Ray Murphy and their team of recallers circulated to residents. Number 3 has to do with getting involved in firing employees.
Town Council members are allowed to vote to fire 2 employees according to the town charter; the town manager and the town attorney. At a hearing on October 1st Cohen appeared to be uncomfortable with Veach and Murphy’s allegation that King violated the Town Charter by allegedly working to fire previous Town Attorney John Herin because the petition does not state clearly who King allegedly tried to fire. Cohen believes voters would not be able to determine from the vague way the recall petition was written who the recallers are alleging King tried to fire. Keep in mind King denied the allegations completely but Cohen is not charged with determining whether the allegations are true or not.
There is precedent that if one allegation in a recall petition fails the entire petition must fail. While Cohen appeared to be leaning toward ruling in King’s favor on the firing allegation, he also said he could change his mind completely.
The Bentley order argues, “because allegation three does not differentiate or identify which town contract employees to which it refers, it is a facially insufficient ground on which to allow a recall petition to proceed.” Bentley asks the judge to deny Veach and Murphy’s motion to dismiss the case and stay the November 4th election.
Veach, Murphy, recall committee members, and recall candidate Rebecca Link are now going door-to-door campaigning for votes on the recall. Campaign literature contains information about the Comprehensive Plan and development. There is no mention about King and Woodson violating any rules or laws.
King and Woodson are also campaigning with signage and social media posts.
If John King’s recall petition were invalidated by the judge – the election would continue for Karen Woodson. The Lee County Elections office would be unable to remove King’s name from the ballots though since they had already been printed. Vote-by-mail ballots also started mailing on October 2nd, before the judges final ruling. A notice would be posted in the voting booths at the polls and on the Lee.vote website explaining the King situation.
In order for King and or Woodson to be recalled a majority of voters must first approve the recall. If over 50% of the voters vote yes for the recall, of the three candidates on the ballot, the two with the most votes take over the recalled seats. Tom Brady, Rebecca Link and Eddie Rood are candidates.
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