Following the remarkable one-man-two-vote rejection of a mayoral recall petition Tuesday night, two of Hartford’s six city councilmen have quit. Ryan Bortnem and Brad Bjergaard resigned from the city council yesterday. Bortnem voted Tuesday to reject the petition seeking to recall Mayor Bill Campbell; Bjergaard voted to accept the petition.
Neither Bortnem nor Bjergaard has commented publicly on reasons for resigning. But whatever the reasons, the city now has to replace them. Mayor Campbell is choosing his words carefully:
Instead of choosing replacements or backing a special election, Campbell plans to recommend that the remaining four council members – two on either side of Tuesday’s recall vote – offer their thoughts on potential successors. The council must approve mayoral appointments anyway, but Campbell says the council should take the lead this time.
“I’m going to stay out of choosing somebody,” Campbell said [John Hult, “Two Hartford City Council Members Resign,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2015.11.19].
The Hartford City Council may do well to cede this decision to the voters of Hartford and let them hash out their differences at the polls. But whether the council or the voters pick these replacements, let’s hope they give each decision-maker exactly one vote.
The citizens who want the mayor out have a couple of options. 1) Sue to force the election they petitioned for; or 2) Circulate another petition that addresses the “vagueness” allegations thrown out by the council with more specifics and submit it again demanding an election.
The second option is cheaper and quicker. I suspect that now they would quickly gather more signatures than they got the first time, and the council would be harder pressed to thwart an election. The town could elect replacements for these two councilors at the same time as the mayoral recall election. And who knows? They may have a few more folks they want to recall now too.
This mess has really hurt the credability of the City Council and the Mayor. CH is right, the voters should have the final say on this issue. I also think the C.C. was wrong about voting to accept or deny the petition based on the language of the reason for the recall. I don’t see anything in statute about accepting or denying a petition. The law says the governing body shall, upon the presentation of a petition order and fix a date for holding a special election.
We still haven’t heard who the “auditor” was that presented the petition, and whether or not that “auditor” engaged in a review process to ascertain the “sufficiency” of the petition, beyond counting signatures.