An effort to recall three of the five members of the Cripple Creek-Victor School District RE-1 school board in Colorado was approved to move forward on April 17. Board President Timothy Braun, Treasurer Dennis Jones, and Secretary Tonya Martin were targeted for recall due to “multiple violations of Colorado state statutes, school board policies and resolutions, Sunshine laws and the Colorado Open Records Act,” according to Patty Waddle, a leader of the recall effort.
Braun, Jones, and Martin disputed all of the claims listed on the recall petitions. Braun said Waddle was a disgruntled former employee. The three board members have until May 2 to file protests against the recall election. If they protest the recall, a hearing will be held on the validity of the petition signatures and the length of the ballot summary. If they do not file protests, the county will schedule a recall election within 60 days.
The recall petitions were approved for circulation by the Teller County Clerk and Recorder in January 2019. To get the recall on the ballot, recall supporters had to submit the petitions with 400 signatures from active, registered voters in the school district for each targeted board member by March 11. The county did not verify enough of the signatures that were first submitted, and recall supporters were given until April 10 to submit more signatures. They submitted the additional signatures, which the county approved on April 17.
Ballotpedia has tracked five school board recall efforts in 2019 targeting 10 board members. One recall effort against two board members was on the ballot so far this year. In 2018, Ballotpedia covered a total of 206 recall efforts against 299 elected officials. Of the 123 officials whose recalls made it to the ballot, 77 were recalled for a rate of 62.6 percent. That was higher than the 56.9 percent rate and 56.3 percent rate for 2017 and 2016 recalls, respectively.
Additional reading:
https://ballotpedia.org/School_board_recalls
https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_Colorado
Learn More
