http://youtu.be/r9Fg8GycaYE
District Judge Mary Rosner has rejected a lawsuit filed by a petitioner who wanted a recall election against Las Cruces city councilor Gill Sorg.
The petitioner, Robert Burow, challenged the Las Cruces city clerk's decision to throw out petition signatures, using the argument that signatures could only be withdrawn up until the petition was handed in to be certified.
In her ruling, Judge Mary Rosner cited state law, which allows the city clerk to "resolve issues of residency and major infractions."
During the recall petition process there were allegations of fraud in which petitioners told people the petition was to prevent the closure of a youth boxing center. Attorney for Councilor Gill Sorg Peter Goodman says this gives the City Clerk the right to remove signatures, a point disputed by the petitioner’s attorney, Samantha Barncastle.
“Clearly, the language does say as Miss Barncastle repeated often,” Goodman said. “That the clerk and the city aren’t supposed to withdraw names after a certain time point, there are some issues as to when that point was, but in addition that doesn’t imply where there are major infractions. The same law that she cites, or the petitioner cites, authorizes the city clerk or the city council to deal with a major infraction.”
The ruling stated that 757 people had requested their names be removed from petitions in the attempts to recall Councilors Sorg, Olga Pedroza and Nathan Small, which is more than 25 percent of all signatures collected
In a statement to KRWG, Attorney for the petitioner Samantha Barncastle did not commit to an appeal…but she did say, “We’re going to be our evaluating our options to look at where we go from here,” Barncastle said. “With the end goal in mind to make Las Cruces a more business friendly community.”
The recall campaign was launched by the political action committee New Mexicans for a Better Tomorrow after a minimum wage increase was passed in Las Cruces. The three councilors targeted in the recall campaign voted against the minimum wage law in a failed attempt to get the measure on the November ballot.
