El Paso News spoke to members of a group of people collecting signatures to recall District 4 City Representative, Cynthia Boyar Trejo, over her recent META vote. On June 17th, a Notice to Recall Trejo was filed with the city clerk’s office. The recall notice was filed by Joshua Dagda. We spoke to Dagda and others involved in the recall effort. This is what we learned.
As we reported, organizers said they are recalling the city representative because of her vote on June 9th against reopening negotiations with META to address community concerns about the datacenter they are building in her district. After a marathon session where 193 members of the community spoke at the meeting, city representatives voted three to five to not reopen negotiations with META about their datacenter. Representatives Alejandra Chávez, Art Fierro, Deanna Maldonado Rocha, and Ivan Niño joined with Trejo against renegotiating with META. Representatives Josh Acevedo, Chris Canales and Lily Limón voted to renegotiate with META.
Fierro, Canales, Chávez and Niño are on the November ballot. As such they cannot be recalled, but Maldonado Rocha, who is not on the November ballot, can be recalled.
Speaking to people involved in the recall effort against Trejo, we learned that there are ongoing discussions about recalling Maldonado Rocha. As of this morning, no formal announcement has been made.
The recall group must collect 4,232 valid signatures of registered voters in District 4 and deliver them to the City Clerk by August 16. If the city clerk’s office determines that there are sufficient valid signatures on the petition, the city council would then schedule an election for Trejo’s seat. Trejo can choose to resign or run again to keep her seat. The recall election date would likely be on the November ballot.
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Recall Organizers Confident of Collecting Enough Signatures
We spoke to Joshua Dagda, who filed the recall notice, about the number of signatures they have collected and their process. We also spoke to other members involved in the recall effort.
Members we spoke to reiterated that the recall effort is a “community effort” with several volunteers collecting signatures. When we first spoke to Dagda the day after he filed the notice with the City Clerk’s office, he told us that the individual leading the effort was Jonathan Zayan.
Attempts to reach Zayan have been unsuccessful. However, we learned yesterday that Zayan may be stepping down from the effort this week.
Others we spoke to involved in the recall told us that the group is “motivated” and confident that they will collect the required signatures. We were told that part of their process is to verify the voting record of the person wanting to sign the petition before they are allowed to sign it.
If the person wanting to sign the petition is not a District 4 voter or if their voting record is not active, they will not be allowed to sign the recall petition, we were told. Members of the recall effort told us that they plan to submit signatures they feel are valid when they file them with city officials.
We asked about the number of signatures the group has collected so far. We were told that they are close to having 1,000 verified signatures. In a telephone call yesterday, Dagda confirmed to us that they were close to having 1,000 valid signatures.
Dagda added that their “target date is August 13,” for having the required signatures.
The deadline to submit the signatures is August 16.
Group members told us that the volunteers are “motivated” and actively gathering signatures. They said that they have reviewed the requirements and believe that their effort will result in the recall of Trejo.
There has never been a successful recall of a city representative in El Paso since the 1980’s, although several attempts have been made. Recall failures have varied from infighting among the recall organizers to litigation where the city was ordered to cancel the recall election even though the organizers had submitted sufficient signatures to recall then-mayor John Cook in 2012.
This is a developing story that we will continue to cover for you.