Charter committee approves three recommendations

CLOVIS — In its third and final meeting, the Clovis Charter Review Committee put forth three changes that could be coming to a ballot near you.

The advisory committee closed out its Tuesday evening meeting by approving three recommendations to the Clovis City Commission:

• Eliminate a section limiting municipal officials to two elected terms. The section is unenforceable due to a New Mexico Supreme Court ruling calling term limits an improper election requirement for municipal offices.

• Edit the charter to remove any references to genders; i.e. a passage referring to a commissioner as “himself.”

• Raise recall election requirements to a petition of registered Clovis voters greater than 33.3% of the office's prior turnout, with the top of the petition including “a clear and concise statement stating the reason for the recall.”

The Clovis city commission can approve, deny or alter the charter recommendations. Any charter change would require a citizen election, which can either be handled as a special election or as part of the November general or March municipal elections.

The committee discussed the first two recommendations briefly, and dedicated about 90% of the meeting to recall discussion.

Recall issue committee's focus

Clovis' current recall procedure requires more than 20% of the office's prior election turnout, with no publicly stated reason required. Signatures must come from the specific district of a commissioner who is the subject of recall, but can come from any district if the mayor or municipal judge is the subject.

The 2019 Recall Act, which the city is not required to follow due to its charter status, requires signatures in excess of 33.3% of prior election turnout, and the petition must first be approved by a judge to determine if the person committed malfeasance or misfeasance as an elected official.

City Attorney Jared Morris told committee members they could suggest any changes they wanted, but advised keeping requirements less onerous than the state recall act.

In the June 15 meeting, he postulated Clovis citizens could recall a commissioner who was arrested for a serious crime, but Recall Act parameters could deem that reason insufficient if the crime didn't occur while the commissioner was acting in their capacity as an elected official.

District 4 Representative Tom Martin asked if voting only on moral grounds violated the oath of office and would meet the legal requirements of malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance. Using an intentionally asinine example to avoid a specific reference, Martin said a commissioner who was morally opposed to jelly beans would vote against a jelly bean factory even though it would violate no laws and posed no danger to residents.

Others believed moral votes were a gray area, and committee member Steve North said the cure to that situation is voters who are fine with jelly beans voting for a candidate who reflects their values.

George Jones, a District 1 representative, said he felt the recall provisions needed to be specific to protect elected officials from frivolous recall efforts, and that a recall shouldn't happen because he and a few friends simply don't like their commissioner.

Clovis Mayor Mike Morris said in his head he liked the idea of needing a state reason for a recall. In his heart, he didn't want to make a citizen's path to recalling an elected official more difficult.

A current recall would require 900 signatures for the mayor or municipal judge, and commissioner recalls would require 345 signatures in District 1, 156 in District 2, 115 in District 3 and 265 in District 4. Applying a 33.3% standard would change those totals to 1,500 for the mayor or judge, 575 in District 1, 260 in District 2, 192 in District 3 and 441 in District 4.

Recall elections rare in city history

North asked how many times the city has actually had a recall election, versus all of the times that recalls are threatened or postulated.

No Clovis elected official has been successfully recalled, and only two have faced recall elections. Charlie Anderson survived his 1990 recall effort 252-232, and John Schuller survived his 1999 recall effort 530-421.

District 4 representative Vincent Soule invoked the pandemic as rationale to prepare for unlikely events, and spoke on a slate of recall elections in Tucumcari that served as inspiration for the 2019 state act. Between 2014 and 2017, five Tucumcari commissioners faced recall elections with four retained, and three other attempts at forcing recall elections failed due to inadequate signature numbers or proximity to the regular municipal election. The Tucumcari recalls had a similar 20% requirement, but due to low turnout in prior elections each recall required only a few dozen signatures.

Soule felt recall elections had their place, but didn't want taxpayers bearing the burden of somebody's pettiness when that potential $40,000 could be spent on city services. He also didn't like the idea his tax dollars would go to a recall election in another district.

“I just remember what happened in Tucumcari,” Soule said, “and I don't ever want that to happen to us.”

District 4 Commissioner Megan Palla, who suggested the provision requiring a stated reason, said she had some trepidation making changes to the recall procedures because it would take power away from citizens.

The charter also grants citizens the opportunity to force a referendum election on an ordinance within 30 days of adoption, and also requires signatures exceeding 20% of prior election turnout. The referendum was forced twice in 2011, with a water-related gross receipts tax upheld and an affordable housing plan overturned. The committee did not discuss the referendum provision during any of its three meetings.

Regarding other recommendations:

• The city attempted in 2004 to remove the term-limit requirement as a question on its municipal election ballot, with 47% voting to keep it, 43% voting to remove it and 9% declining to vote. Mayor Morris asked if the voters knew what they were voting for. City Clerk LeighAnn Melancon said city staff did what it could to educate voters on the matter without taking a stance on term limits.

• On removing gender references in the charter, City Manager Justin Howalt was optimistic during the committee's June 15 meeting those were innocuous changes that didn’t require a ballot question.

Howalt amended his stance Tuesday; research showed other municipalities handled similar changes by ballot questions, and he felt it prudent to follow suit.