BARTOW, Fla. — A group seeking to remove three Fort Meade city leaders from office has submitted recall petitions following months of controversy over the city's approval of a proposed data center.
Organizers with the recall effort say they collected about 430 signatures, exceeding the 276 signatures they believe were needed to meet the first threshold under Florida law.
The petitions target Mayor Jaret Williams and Commissioners Petrina McCutchen and Matthew Taylor.
The recall effort follows the Fort Meade City Commission's approval of a controversial data center project, but organizers say the petitions themselves are based on additional allegations involving city governance beyond the data center vote.
"This endeavor, it was a joint effort," recall organizer Michael Bennett said. "We had members of the Democratic Party that came down and petitioned to collect signatures. The Republican Party."
What happens next?
Florida's municipal recall law outlines a multi-step process before a recall election can occur.
Under Section 100.361 of the Florida Statutes, signed recall petitions are first filed with the municipal clerk. The law states that "immediately after" the petitions are filed, the clerk shall submit them to the county Supervisor of Elections for signature verification. The recall committee is responsible for paying the verification fee in advance.
Wednesday, Bennett and fellow organizers made that payment to the Supervisor of Elections’ staff in Bartow.
As of Wednesday evening, organizers said the petitions had not yet been delivered to the Polk County Supervisor of Elections for verification.
Organizers said staff at the Supervisor of Elections Office told them the City of Fort Meade is expected to deliver the petitions around 8 a.m. Thursday, at which point the signature verification process can begin.
Once the petitions are received, the Supervisor of Elections has up to 30 days to determine whether enough valid signatures have been submitted to move the recall effort to its next phase.
If enough signatures are verified, the targeted city officials would have an opportunity to submit a written defense before organizers would be required to collect a second round of signatures equal to 15% of Fort Meade’s registered voters before any recall election could be scheduled.
Organizers say they're confident they can meet the second-round requirement after collecting well above the number of signatures needed in the first round.
“I feel like it was a good outturn,” Bennett said. “The people wanted to come in. They were pouring in. They wanted to be a part of it. They wanted their voice heard.”
Officials respond
Tampa Bay 28 reached out to all three officials named in the recall petitions and is awaiting a response.
Commissioner Matthew Taylor has previously called the allegations contained in the petitions "incorrect" and said organizers are "grasping at straws" in an effort to stop the data center project.
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