Recall effort fails

No signatures submitted by July 2 deadline

Robert Allen and the committee pushing to have a recall election of all three Gunnison County commissioners have come up short.

The group that accused the commissioners of violating the state and national constitution, and asked other county residents to join in their cause, let the Friday, July 2 deadline to turn signed petitions into the county clerk and recorder pass.
County clerk and recorder Stella Dominguez says, “The deadline was Friday and they didn’t turn anything in, so apparently they didn’t get the signatures required.”
Allen says that’s true, but didn’t want to say how far short the committee had been. They needed to collect more than 2,100 signatures to force a recall election of Hap Channell and Paula Swenson, and more than 1,500 signatures to recall Jim Starr.
The committee had dealt with its share of unrest after it formed on the ides of March. The original petition called for the recall based on a perceived failure by the county commissioner “to support The Constitution of the United States of America and the State of Colorado.” It also cited the commissioners’ decision to move forward with a plan to build a new jail as a reason for the revolt. Less than a month later that petition language changed to be more ambiguous.
At the time, Allen said the language was changed because “We thought we needed to cover more of the political base in this county.” But soon after the language changed, the committee changed too, leaving Allen as the sole original member.
Two other county residents stepped up quickly to fill the vacancies and the timeline started again. During an interview with Allen last month, it looked like the committee had several petition booklets filled with signatures. But it wasn’t enough.
Allen says he is “looking at” some sort of second act but didn’t want to say where it was headed, but he said he thought he had made his point.