The petition filed to ask for a recall election would state the reason for recall of a particular elected official, but not the ordinance itself, because reasons that petitioners would have to remove an official are likely to be case-specific.
If the language of the ordinance itself contained specific reasons for recall of an elected official, petitioners would be limited to recalling elected officials they had lost confidence in only for the reasons stated in the ordinance.
This happened in the Maine town of Harpswell. Their original recall ordinance had 5 specific reasons including US/ME felony conviction; absences greater than allowed; 2 or more violations of Freedom of Access Act. Because of general dissatisfaction among the voters, the town redrafted the ordinance, reducing the reasons to 4. The town administrator reports there is still the general feeling that it is nearly impossible to recall an elected official.
In the Maine town of Andover, the opposite happened. 10% of the voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election (as Paris draft says) petitioned - twice - to remove an elected official, with no stated reason in the ordinance, but stated reasons in the petition itself. However, both times, 6 months apart, the recall elections returned the official to her seat because the number of votes needed to recall her did not materialize.
So, give thought to the 7-30 Advertiser Democrat's quoting Troy Ripley, who said he would fight the recall ordinance draft until it said what he wanted, "namely, enumeration of specific reasons for removal. "
Shouldn't an elected official hope to be on good enough terms with the voters of the entire town to be able to stand on his/her own record?
