Petition to recall council member Laura Nauser submitted Monday

Organizers of an effort to recall Columbia Fifth Ward Councilwoman Laura Nauser submitted their petition to the city on Monday.

Taylor Burks told ABC 17 News the petition has 416 signatures, eight more than the number required to initiate a recall election. The recall effort was started by some Fifth Ward residents who are upset with Nauser and the city council’s vote to put a power transmission line project on hold to reconsider other route options.

“This is an issue that isn’t going to go away,” he said. “This is an issue that people in our neighborhood care about a lot.”

Nauser said she has always voted against the Option A route, which would place the power lines right along Nifong Boulevard.

“I originally voted ‘No’ in 2013 and I voted ‘No’ again in 2016,” she said. “So my position hasn’t changed. So why all of the sudden am I’m not so fiscally conservative when I was back in 2013?”

City Clerk Sheela Amin said she now has 30 days to count and verify the signatures are all from registered voters in the 5th Ward. She added if it there aren’t enough signatures, petitioners will have the opportunity to get more.

Burks said if the recall issue is not approved in time for the August ballot, the political action committee will begin looking for a candidate to run against Nauser in the April 2017 election.

“We have hundreds of people in Ward 5 that said her opinion is not acceptable,” he said. “If she wants to have a conversation about giving up her seat, so that we can run a different fiscally conservative candidate for can advocate for Ward 5, I think that’s an appropriate conversation to have.”

The petition needs to be approved and submitted to the city council by May 2nd. Council would have to vote on the issue by May 16th, because the deadline to notify the county clerk of the election is May 24th.

It’s not the first time Columbia residents are working to get rid of a city council member. The latest recall effort was in December 2014 when First Ward residents turned in a petition to recall Ginny Chadwick. She resigned the following month.

“It is the way our government is set up and people certainly have the right to initiate a petition,” Nauser said. “It seems to be a popular trend these days. It seems to be happening more and more often, which is a shame.”

Burks said that if the city continues to vote against routing the transmission lines with Option A, the group will look into suing the city.