TKC FIRST!!! RECALL MAYOR QUINTON LUCAS SOCIAL MEDIA GROUP CONFRONTS TOUGH KANSAS CITY REQUIREMENTS!!!

Recently, a local group has been gaining traction online and pushing an effort to recall Mayor Quinton Lucas over disagreements with this coronavirus crackdown strategies.

From what we seen . . .

THE GROUP SEEMS UNFAMILIAR WITH THE ARDUOUS PROCESS FOR KCMO RECALL!!!

As always, we're here to help.

First, here's the muni-code that they'll need to understand in order to start the process . . .

Sec. 720.5. - Grounds for recall.

"Grounds for recall must relate to and affect the administration of the officials office, and be of a substantial nature directly affecting the rights and interests of the public. Grounds for recall are limited to objective reasons which reasonable people, regardless of their political persuasion, could agree would render any officials performance ineffective, which must be an act of misfeasance, the improper performance of some act which may lawfully be done, or malfeasance, the commission of some act wholly beyond the officials authority, or nonfeasance, the failure to perform a required duty. The Council shall not fail to place the matter before the voters based on the inadequacy of the grounds stated by the committee of petitioners."

(Ord. No. 051253, § 4, 5-18-06, eff. 9-1-06)

Now . . .

This is tricky because . . .

Petitioners must sign on to a legal document claiming the mayor has performed an act of malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance . . . In turn, this claim opens up sponsors of the petition to a very real threat of legal push back.

In the last major effort to oust a politico from office, former recall petitioners against Mayor Mark Funkhouser were prepared to take on this risk . . . Mostly because the nincompoop politico was far less popular than current Mayor Lucas. Also, former politically inept Mayor Funky and his domineering wife didn't have as many lawyer friends as Mayor Q.

Let's also not forget that cowtown politics at this shady level is fraught with peril and scams . . . According to Midtown coffee shop legend, a long dead political consultant lifted about $10K from the group anti-Funkhouser petitioners as he pretended to "bundle" money for their cause and then pocketed the proceeds which he billed as a "fee" for his promotional services. We share this example not only as tribute to a formerly glorious grifter who is now pushing up daisies but also to warn local rubes of how easy it is to separate fools from their money in Kansas City politics.

Now, let's look at the numbers game . . .

Sec. 721. - Filing recall petition.

"A petition demanding the removal of any officer elected by the vote of the people shall be known as a recall petition. A recall petition, to be effective, must be filed with the City Clerk, or with the election authorities, within thirty (30) days after the filing of the affidavit as provided in the next preceding section, and to be sufficient, must bear the signatures of registered voters of the City or district from which such officer was elected equal in number to at least twenty per cent (20%) of the total vote cast therein for candidates for the office of Mayor at the last preceding regular municipal election. A recall petition, if insufficient as originally filed, may be supplemented as provided in this article. The committee of petitioners hereinafter described shall have the right, at their option, to file a recall petition either with the City Clerk or with the election authorities of the City, and the City Clerk or the election authorities, as the case may be, with equal force and effect, shall have the power to certify as to the sufficiency of such recall petition."

First here's a look at some math on the requirements for recall:

According to KMBC, Mayor Quinton Lucas won election by 59% with 39,216 votes. Former council lady Jolie Justus garnered 27,747 votes or 41% of the turnout

A rough calculation estimates that petitioners will need around 13,393 VALID KCMO VOTER SIGNATURES in order to start the process.

This is actually good news for petitioners given that the low turnout election which put Mayor Q in office produced a significantly easier threshold for removal than required by the previous effort. Supporters of the campaign against Mayor Funky needed to obtain 16,950 valid signatures of registered voters in order to get the issue on the August 2009 ballot. They were only able to gather 16,821 signatures. A mere 129 signatures kept Mayor Funky in office and I'm sure about half of that total was lost in the backseat of TKC's old Toyota when I overslept and forgot to send the petition sheets I had collected. My bad.

Anyhoo . . .

Now, we're not saying that a recall isn't possible . . . The social media political push back against Mayor Q is real and increasing daily . . . However, at this point, the recall effort seems far fetched and mostly looks like a gambit to garner social media attention rather than make a valid, real, political power play.

Developing . . .