6 cities’ mayors facing recalls

To stay or to go now voters’ call

In almost every town in Arkansas on Tuesday, ballots will be about putting someone into office.

But in at least six cities, voters will choose whether to remove their mayors.

The mayors of Alexander, Bauxite, Cotton Plant, Kingsland, Redfield and Wilmot face recalls. For a mayoral recall election to be held, 25 percent of a town’s registered voters who participated in the previous election cycle must sign a petition.

In Alexander, Mayor Paul Mitchell called the recall process “good for democracy” and said he isn’t bothered by it.

“I feel good about being able to stay on as mayor, and I feel like I will still be mayor after this election,” said Mitchell, who has been in office for two years in the city of 2,900 residents.

“I know I have stepped on a lot of toes, and that is about all it is I think. I have my own ideas and thoughts about how to run this city. Maybe some people want it back to the old status quo.”

In Bauxite, Mayor Johnny McMahan said he is treating the recall as a campaign for re-election, going door to door to explain to voters why he should keep his job as chief executive of the 487-resident town.

“I feel like for so long, Bauxite has been run like ma and pa, and some people want that old way to

return,” McMahan said.

McMahan has been mayor for two years.

Cotton Plant Mayor Ronnie Conley said he is “very confident” that he will remain in office, calling himself a “righteous leader who will help this community prosper.”

Conley touted $3 million in grants he has helped secure since taking office six years ago for his town, which has about 650 residents.

In Wilmot, Mayor Clinton Harris wasn’t as sure that he would retain his job, though he said he is proud of his record.

“I really haven’t been able to get a good read on the way people feel in this community,” said Harris, who is serving his third term in the town of about 550 residents. “But I will say that we have a balanced budget and a surplus. We have received grants for drainage and also a walking trail. I feel like I have done the best job I can for Wilmot.”

A phone call to Kingsland Mayor Tim McClellan, who runs the town of 447 people, went unanswered.

A message left for Tony Lawhon, mayor of Redfield, which has 1,297 residents, wasn’t returned.

Many residents in these six towns did not want to discuss the recalls. Some said they were embarrassed by the attention their towns are receiving, others simply said they want a change.

The Redfield couple who helped organize that city’s recall called the issue “sensitive because we all know each other so well.” They said they would prefer not to give their names.

William Shelton, a member of the Concerned Citizens of Cotton Plant, which organized the recall effort against Conley, has said the mayor hasn’t properly addressed the city’s issues, such as drainage.

Shelton and the recall group also contend that Conley has failed on his promises to attract jobs to the community.

More than 100 signatures were turned in to get the recall effort on the ballot in Cotton Plant, according to the Woodruff County clerk’s office.

RECALL HISTORY Recalls — whether against a governor, state legislator or municipal official — are rare in Arkansas. But they do crop up. Recalls began in Los Angeles in 1903, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Each state’s law is different — some require at least a year before an elected official can face a recall; others allow recalls at any time.

There have been three gubernatorial recall elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Earlier this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survived a recall attempt.

In California, voters have initiated 32 gubernatorial recall attempts since 1911, but the 2003 case of Gov. Gray Davis was the first to ever reach the state’s ballot, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Voters successfully removed him as governor.

In North Dakota, voters recalled three people from office in 1921: the governor, attorney general and commissioner of agriculture, said the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Recalls of state legislators and municipal government officials are slightly more common, but are still unusual, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In Arkansas, they include a recall of a Caddo Valley recorder-treasurer — who is responsible for signing legal documents, banking and signing checks, as well as presiding over meetings if the mayor cannot attend. Voters removed the recorder-treasurer in an election in 2010.

But an attempt to get a recall election on a Little Rock city director in 2007 and 2008 failed because petitioners couldn’t gather enough signatures.

Mark Hayes, an attorney with the Arkansas Municipal League, has said there is no set reason for why communities rally behind a recall election because “each situation is so unique.”

RECALL FEVER In an April 2011 article published in Governing magazine, Tom Cochran, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the nation is entering a stage of “recall fever.”

The magazine noted that as many as 57 mayors in cities with more than 30,000 residents faced recall attempts in 2010, up from 23 in 2009.

In 2010 in Florida, MiamiDade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez overwhelmingly lost “what may be the largest-ever recall of a local official,” the magazine wrote.

“All we’re doing is telling the mayors they’d better watch their backs,” Cochran told the magazine, which noted that recalls aren’t typically based on any allegations of criminal wrongdoing.

“The mayors are easy pickings. They’re low-hanging fruit.”