Recall petitions certified

A recall petition for School Board President Trevor Shaw has been reviewed and was certified Friday by Ketchikan Gateway Borough Clerk Kacie Paxton.

It now will be in front of the borough assembly during a special meeting on Aug. 15th for placement on the Oct. 2^nd local election ballot.

Recall petition sponsors started collecting signatures on July 24^th. They ended up with about 700 overall. Paxton says the review shows most of those were valid.

“The required number of valid signatures according to the statute was 540, which is equivalent to 25 percent of the number of votes cast at the last borough election,” she said. “So, they needed 540 signatures in order for the petition to be certified, and they had 640 valid signatures.”

The grounds for recall listed on the petition allege that Shaw violated board bylaws by not allowing the student board representative to participate in a discussion. Shaw questions the validity of that allegation, and adds that the grounds on the petition aren’t the real reason behind the recall attempt.

Shaw said in an interview Tuesday that he was considering a legal challenge to the recall.

Here is an earlier report about the recall effort.