The Lawton City Charter spells out in detail the procedures required to recall Mayor Stan Booker and City Councilman Jay Burk, the mayor pro tempore.
To initiate recall proceedings, a written statement proposing the recall must be signed by 100 or more registered voters of the city or of the particular ward – in this instance Ward 4 – and must be filed with the city clerk after the incumbent has held the office for at least four months.
Burk was first elected in 2008. Booker was elected in November 2018 and is in the second year of a three-year term.
The recall statement must explain, in a maximum of 200 words, the reason(s) for which recall is sought.
Within five days the city clerk must send a copy of the statement by registered, certified, “or similar special” mail to the elected official at his residential address.
Within ten days after the statement is mailed, the elected official may make and file with the city clerk a written rebuttal, “in duplicate” and in no more than 200 words, justifying his conduct in office.
On request, the city clerk must deliver one copy of that statement to “one of the persons filing the statement” that proposed the recall.
The recall petition must include a demand that a successor be elected to replace the officeholder targeted for recall. It also must include a statement spelling out the reason(s) why recall is being sought, along with the elected official’s statement justifying his conduct while in office.
“The two statements shall be in letters of the same size,” the city charter mandates.
A copy of the petition must be filed with the city clerk within one month after recall proceedings are initiated “by the filing of the first statement, and before the petition is circulated.”
The petition must be signed by a number of registered, qualified voters of the city or of Ward 4 equal to at least 20% of the total number of votes that were cast for governor citywide or in Ward 4 during the statewide general election in November 2018.
Each signer of the petition must include his/her address within the city, “giving street or avenue and number.”
Copies of the petition must be circulated only by registered, qualified voters of Lawton or of Ward 4, and a petition circulator must vouch for each signature.
The petitioners would have one month in which to collect signatures, the charter indicates. “The circulated petition shall be filed with the city clerk not later than one month after the filing of a copy...”
After a recall petition has been filed, the city clerk is allotted one month to “examine it and ascertain whether it has been prepared and circulated as required” and certify whether it bears the requisite number of signatures.
If it meets the requirements, the petition is to be submitted to the city council at its next meeting.
Within one month after receiving the petition and the city clerk’s certificate, the council must fix a date for a citywide election on the recall proposition “at the earliest date allowed by state law...”
Although the recall election would be held to fill the office occupied by the incumbent, any qualified Lawtonian – including the incumbent whose ouster is sought by the petitioners – “may file as a candidate for the office.”
The candidate receiving the most votes in the recall election would be elected. “There shall be no primary,” the charter decrees. The election would be ‘one and done’.
If the incumbent were favored in the recall election, he would “continue in office without inter- ruption” and no recall proceedings could be initiated against him again for at least one year.
If the incumbent were to lose the recall election, or resign from office while the recall proceedings were pending, he would be barred from holding any appointive municipal office or position of employment in city government for two years.