KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Kansas City election board is counting nearly 80 pages of signatures for a petition to recall a city councilman.
A binder is filled with 79 pages of signatures from residents in the city’s third district who want to recall councilman Jermaine Reed. The city’s interim clerk Marilyn Sanders said the signatures made it to the clerk’s office Sunday. She said she came in to get it.
Among those who signed was third district resident Carolyn Alexander.
“I think he kind of presented himself as one thing and it didn’t turn out to be that at all,” Alexander said.
The efforts for a recall date back to February and center around the councilman’s support to build a $57 million new east patrol police station near 27th and Prospect. But it also means displacing about 60 residents.
“I know what it’s like to be uprooted, certainly, it just hit you out of the blue. So I have much sympathy for them,” Alexander said.
FOX 4 tried talking to families in that area, but those residents told us they did not want to talk publicly. They fear the city could see that and decide to lower the compensation it would give them to move.
Reed said he has no part in negotiations. But said the city has already gotten a hefty chunk of homeowners there to sell to it.
“To date, we are at 85 percent of homeowners who have sold their property to the city and the other half we’re still negotiating and working with them,” Reed said.
Reed’s first term in office hasn’t been a breeze. He’s been criticized for being inexperienced. But Reed said there have been several improvements in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods because of him and this petition won’t distract him from doing more.
“No uneasiness at all. I mean it comes with the territory, I’ve got tough skin and I’m just going to keep working hard on the citizen’s behalf,” Reed said.
Sanders said the elections board has 10 days to count those signatures. She said 1,633 signatures of registered voters are needed. Sanders said if there are not enough, petitioners get 10 more days to gather more.
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