Ellisville City Council Adds Article 9, Recall Process to Agenda

The Ellisville City Council will determine Wednesday if an amendment should be made to Article 9, a city charter element involving the process of a recall of council members.

In recent sparrings regarding the potential Walmart development, a volunteer citizen group deemed Article 9 Alliance has been : according to the city charter, an official cannot be recalled within the first 120 days in office, nor within 180 days from his or her next election.

The agenda item, which was added late in the business day Tuesday, reads:

Bill #3282: An ordinance referring to the electorate of the City of Ellisville the question of whether Article IX of the Ellisville City Charter should be amended to require the recall of elected officials only for specified cause, and calling an election on the question as presented herein for the November 6, 2012 election. 

"The urgency now is to get it on the November 6 ballot," Ellisville Mayor Adam Paul told Patch. "It is a concern to me regarding the urgency because of factors like cost to add that to the ballot...Any time you amend legislation it should be examined thoroughly."

The Council also added a special meeting for Aug. 16 regarding the legislation. Liz Schmidt, chair of the Article 9 Alliance, released an alert email encouraging members to attend the meeting.

"These proposed changes to the City Charter will make it more difficult (and nearly impossible) for voters to Recall elected during their term of office," the statement issued by Schmidt said.

Updated: Aug. 15 at 10:43 a.m.

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