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Error scraps effort to recall Gilbert mayor
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A clerical error inside the Gilbert Town Clerk's Office has killed a four-monthlong drive to oust Mayor Steve Berman from office.
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"We were harmed in a major way by this," said Fred Phillis, Berman's chief critic who formed the political committee End Corruption in Gilbert to push for the mayor's recall. "The whole effort is just gone now. They're returning the signatures. They're refusing to accept them."
In a letter delivered to Phillis on Friday, Town Clerk Cathy Templeton stated she miscalculated the number of signatures required when the recall group took out the petitions in February.
According to the letter, Phillis' group needed 1,963 signatures - double the number Templeton originally stated.
Under state law, the number of signatures required to get a recall on the ballot is equal to 25 percent of the total number of votes cast in the last election for that office.
But Templeton mistakenly divided that number by two, which was how many candidates ran in the last mayoral race, she said. That resulted in a lower number of required signatures.
Apparently, the error went unnoticed until Templeton was questioned about the calculation Friday morning by Chris Baker, a political consultant hired by Berman.
After Baker's inquiry, Templeton reviewed the calculations and determined she should not have divided the number of required signatures in half, she said. Even though there were two candidates, only one office was being sought, Templeton said.
The deadline to file the petitions was Thursday, however, meaning the recall group will have to start over on collecting signatures if it chooses to push a recall.
"This effectively kills the recall against Mayor Steve Berman," Phillis said.
"We would never have pursued it, under these circumstances at least, looking for 1,900 signatures. Had we known that was the amount called for, we would have walked away from it."
Templeton accepted full responsibility in the letter and apologized to Phillis, who said Friday he firmly believes the clerk made an honest mistake.
"I would not have expected Cathy Templeton to make an error," Phillis said. "I do not believe under any circumstance that this would have been deliberate on her part."
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