The effort to recall Tucson Mayor Regina Romero has ended after the committee failed to collect enough valid signatures for the petition, the city clerk said Monday.
The Recall Regina 2020 Committee that officially began its recall effort in October, needed 24,710 signatures by Feb. 27 to proceed to the verification phase of the petition process. After the initial tabulation, the number of signatures submitted by the committee was 24,153.
βThis does not meet the requirements to proceed to the verification phase and therefore, pursuant to Tucson Code 12-167, the city clerk has issued the committee a Receipt of Insufficiency, which ends this recall petition,β city officials said.
Benjamin Wilder, director of the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, explains why the site is the heartbeat of the Tucson region. The 860-acre ecological reserve is visited by hundreds of people daily who climb the 1.5-mile hill for exercise. Wilder says visitors are walking through a history of plants, ecology and people. Video by: Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star, Jan. 14, 2021
Initiated by residents Joseph Morgan, Dawn Polotto and Alexander McKenna, the petition was a result of what they called βRomeroβs failure to fulfill her duties as the Mayor of Tucson.β
Morgan, the lead organizer, was also in attendance during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, calling it a βgreat day in America.β
The group was responsible for several protests around Tucson over the past several months, including a protest in support of funding for law enforcement as well as a βMask Lessβ protest in opposition of the cityβs face mask mandate, which was held outside of Romeroβs house.
βMayor Romero answers to all of the residents of Tucson, who have elected her with strong majorities in every city election she has run in,β said a statement from the mayorβs office.
βThis recall effort was no more than a fringe group with unvalidated signatures attempting to overturn the will of the majority of Tucsonans. Nevertheless, she will continue her tireless work to build a more strong, sustainable, and resilient city for all Tucsonans, regardless of whether they voted for her or not.β
In reaction to the petition failure, Morgan said this in a Facebook post Saturday:
βWe may have come up short of this goal, but our voice was heard and will continue to be heard. We have only just begun.β
