Norman clerk reverses course on recall

NORMAN — The city of Norman does not have enough certified signatures to trigger a recall election for Ward 3 city council member Alison Petr one, City Clerk Brenda Hall admitted in a legal filing this week.

Petrone sued Hall last month after the clerk certified 2,580 of the 3,444 signatures submitted by Unite Norman, the group trying to remove Petrone from office. The required number of signatures to trigger such an election is 2,573, or 25% of the 10,292 voters registered to vote in Ward 3.

Based on multiple discrepancies, including duplicate signatures, the recall petition for Petrone would appear to be three signatures short of the required threshold, The Oklahoman has learned.

Petr one' s attorney challenged the validity of the signatures, alleging the petition forms were invalid because they did not contain verification forms required by law. Attorney Joel L. Wohlgemuth, who oversaw a separate verification process, found "additional signatures to be ineligible in an amount sufficient to render the Recall Petition invalid as a matter of law."

W oh lg emu th also alleged the petition "bears multiple illegible signatures, from which identity of the signers cannot be ascertained, and which must therefore bed isqualified ." The attorney also alleged "additional signatories to the Recall Petition do not appear in the voter registration database for the city of Norman."

Hall, who was responsible for verifying and counting the signatures, admitted to the allegations in the city's answer to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Cleveland County District Court.

Earlier Tuesday, the attorney for Unite Norman filed a motion to intervene in the case, which has been assigned to District Judge Th ad Balkman.

"Unite Norman expended significant time and expense required to circulate the Ward 3 Recall Petition," the filing states. "And as the proponents of the Ward 3 Recall Petition, Unite Norman should be afforded the right to intervene."

The group also tried to remove Norman Mayor Bree a Clark and three other council members — Kate Bierman, Sereta Wilson and Stephen Holman — for reducing the police budget and "failing to up hold the will of t he people." But Unite Norman did not submit enough signatures on petition store call Bierman, who represents Ward 1, and Holman, who represents Ward 7, and failed to submit the required number of valid signatures to support a mayoral petition. Wilson resigned as the council's Ward 5 representative early in the process.

Group co-founders Sassan Moghadam and Russell Smith, however, have asked Balk man to decide whether Clark should be on are call ballot even though Hall did not verify enough valid signatures.