La Plata County Clerk and Recorder Tiffany Parker on Tuesday said the petition a trio of residents filed in an effort to recall La Plata Commissioner Gwen Lachelt fell just more than 2,000 signatures short of the 7,505 required.
Parker said 5,475 signatures of the 6,485 submitted were verified as valid.
She found that 1,010 signatures were invalid. They were rejected for a number of reasons, including missing information, duplicate signatures and incorrect address information.
"We are looking at about a 15 percent rejection rate on this," she said. "That is pretty normal for petitions. We did have 94 duplicate signatures."
Recall organizers now have 15 days to collect the remaining 2,031 signatures needed to force a vote, Parker said.
Residents with the recall effort submitted their signed petitions on March 30. Even though they did not have the required 7,505, Parker had 15 business days to verify them.
After that verification, the organizers get another chance. An unusual provision in Colorado law allows recall supporters another 15-day period to collect more signatures and to try to correct any deficiencies.
Peters has said recall supporters would take advantage of the extra 15-day period to try to collect the needed 7,505 valid signatures.
County residents David Peters, Ty Hawkins and Michael Cugnini launched the recall effort in February because they said Lachelt's environmental lobbying efforts harmed her attendance at county meetings. They also said she leveraged the duties of public office as a county commissioner to advance the interests of Western Leaders Network.
Lachelt, a Democrat, formed Western Leaders Network as a nonprofit, bipartisan platform for local and state officials to connect on conservation issues.
She launched a "Stop the Recall" campaign in February in response to the recall effort.
Cugnini declined to comment about the recall effort, and Peters and Hawkins did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Lachelt described the recall effort as "a waste of taxpayer dollars" in a February news release.
A special recall election would cost the county about $58,000, but if the election is pushed to the November General Election, it would eliminate that cost, Parker said.
Lachelt was first elected to a four-year term on the Board of County Commissioners in 2012, beating incumbent Kellie Hotter, a Republican, by a vote of 14,095 to 13,921.
She was re-elected in 2016 when she beat Republican challenger Lyle McKnight 15,337 to 14,680. Lachelt represents District 2, which encompasses central La Plata County, including Durango.
"I'm term-limited," Lachelt said in the release. "A special election ... is also a subversion of the democratic process."
Lachelt did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment about Parker's findings.
mrupani@durangoherald.com
