Petitions seeking recall elections to remove Ken Rowe and Kendall Callahan from the Iola City Council were found valid and will be circulated by Iolans for Good Government.
The petitions were handed to Allen County Attorney Wade Bowie last week to determine whether reasons for recall met legal muster. They did, said Bowie in an opinion given to Allen County Clerk Sherrie Riebel Monday.
Rowe and Callahan have come under fire for allegedly stepping outside the council’s bounds to discuss city business and for being ringleaders in the firing of City Administrator Judy Brigham and Ken Hunt, human resources director.
The petitions cite identical rationales:
That (Rowe and Callahan) “… committed misconduct in office, specifically by the following: 1. Knowingly violating the Kansas Open Meetings Act by conducting city business via committees, including the Utility Review and Purchasing Policy committees of which he is a member. These committees are formally acknowledged by the council in open meetings as committees, but do not provide public notice of their meetings or public records of their meeting minutes, despite the council’s being publicly reminded in August 2011 of these requirements; and 2. Knowingly violating the Code of Procedures for Kansas cities, adopted by the council in July 2011, which requires all motions for executive sessions to include a justification statement. This statement has not been included in motions made …” by Rowe or Callahan.
In a statement, Bowie said he was “required by Kansas law … to determine whether the sufficiency of the grounds for recall of the elected official have been met under the minimum requirements of the applicable statute. …”
In what he referred to as his “limited role,” Bowie said he thought the law was met and the petitions should go forward. He also noted his opinion should not be construed as “an endorsement of the recall petition … nor does it constitute an opinion that the grounds as stated within the petition justify a recall …” of either councilman.
Rowe told the Register Tuesday afternoon he had would have no immediate comment about the recall effort.
ROWE AND Callahan were among eight council members elected in April 2011, when Iola switched from two commissioners and a mayor to a council of eight members and a mayor. Council members are wrestling with writing charter ordinances that may reduce the role of the mayor in the current arrangement of a governing body of nine. Also, they have been asked by some constituents to reorganize the council to one of four members and a mayor.
A petition drive in 2009 originally led to the old commission form of government being abandoned in favor of a different governing body.
Former commissioners, following an advisory vote in April 2010, installed charter ordinances establishing a hybrid, five-member commission. It was rejected by voters that November after a second petition drive prompted an up-or-down vote on the ordinance.
The rejection left Iola’s “default” governing body an eight-member council, with two members elected from each ward, and a mayor voted in at large.
ONLY REGISTERED voters living in the First and Fourth wards, represented respectively by Callahan and Rowe, will be eligible to sign the recall petitions, or vote if they are successful in forcing a referendum.
The law states that 40 percent of the number who voted in the last city election will be required for success, which was reduced to 20 percent because each ward has two representatives.
Thus, Rowe’s petition will require 65 valid signatures to force an election, Callahan’s 54. Organizers will have 90 days to accumulate signatures and Riebel may take as long as another 30 days to determine whether either petition has sufficient legal signatures.
Riebel said if enough valid signatures were collected quickly enough, the referendums could be a part of the Aug. 7 primary election. If not, a special election would be an alternative.
