This year, some Colorado voters are once again exercising their state constitutional right to recall their elected leaders, an occurrence that is apparently becoming en vogue in the state. Of course, no two recall situations are alike, each of them borne out of unique situations with one common trait – elected officials finding themselves on the receiving end of an angry electorate feeling some degree of buyer’s remorse.

Within the last couple of months, voters in two Colorado cities, Castle Rock and Thornton, have raised their pitchforks to the sky, seeking to remove their elected city councilmembers due to contrasting situations. Like the recently successful Jefferson County School Board recall and the victorious 2013 Pueblo/Colorado Springs tossing of two state legislators over their votes on gun issues, the Castle Rock and Thornton recall campaigns – both in their fledgling stages – are starting to draw attention from across the state and even nationally as the movements take shape and moneyed interests invest financial resources on either side.Castle Rock Mayor Paul Donahue

Castle Rock’s Paul Donahue, mayor and councilman for District 1, is looking down the barrel of a recall effort in his booming city, championed by Suzanne Hackett, Malia Reeves, and John Buckley and their supporters. In March, the Castle Rock News-Press reported that the town clerk certified a recall petition for circulation. The petition called on Donahue to be removed from office due to his, “leadership style and voting record.”

Circulators of the recall petition say the mayor is not representing his district, behaving as a “king” rather than an elected public servant by cutting short public comment periods during council meetings and purposely favoring out-of-town developers over his local constituents, say activists, naming just two of the complaints represented in the petition.

But Donahue told the Castle Rock News-Press that just hasn’t been the case. “Never once did we restrict what a person can say, just when they can say it,” Donahue said, referring to when council decided to spread out the public comment period during council meetings.

Recall organizers disagree. Donahue has “lead an agenda to suppress voices of those with whom he disagrees yet took an oath to represent,” reads the petition. They say Donahue’s votes to stint opportunity for public testimony at council meetings and to stop grants intended for use to aid older residents of Castle Rock are the despicable acts of a self-interested town dictator. They add that he has supported development projects that put the town’s environment and infrastructure at risk. Donahue denies such allegations.

With only 147 signatures needed to force a recall election, the town clerk verified that 242 signatures were gathered by the effort, according to an April 12 news release. Donahue supporters filed eight protests against the recall, but Aurora city clerk Karen Goldman, who served as an independent hearing officer in the case ruled on April 28 that there was “no credible evidence of petition failure,” meaning the recall organizers have a clear runway ahead.

Chicago-style politics in Castle Rock?

If they were upset with their mayor before, recall organizers are even more livid with Donahue now, who, they claim, sent “his minions” to the homes of voters who signed the recall petition in an attempt to get them to back off. Donahue’s campaign claims his intent was to prove that recall organizers misrepresented the petition to people in order to get them to sign. But the recall campaign views such a move as an effort to intimidate the same voters Donahue was elected to represent.

Donahue claims he needed to build a valid case to support himself in the April 28 protest hearing. Donahue’s campaign obtained the names and addresses of the petition signers through a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request. The Donahue team then contacted 32 voters at their homes and got 15 of them to sign notarized statements stating they were misled as to what the recall petition actually represented. To facilitate immediate verification, a notary public traveled with the group of Donahue supporters to each voters’ doorstep, on hand in the event a voter decided they were ready to have a change of heart.

“These people are misrepresenting me and my voting record to fit their narrative,” Donahue told The Colorado Statesman, “I believe the recall effort is purely punitive and costing the taxpayers of Castle Rock thousands.” Donahue added he believes recalls should only be used to root out corruption in government and public office.

Some estimates have pegged the cost of a special recall election in Castle Rock at around $10,000.

But regardless of the costs involved, some of the petitioners and voters are saying that Donahue’s door-to-door interactions stoop to a new, low-level for the mayor. One circulator, Stacey Rogers, told The Statesman that she views this tactic as disparaging.

“The act, by which the subject of a recall election is going door to door to inquire as to a signer’s interpretation of the petition is intimidation,” Rogers said. She echoed a common narrative amongst the recall crowd, stating Donahue is self-interested and does not represent his constituents.

The Castle Rock City Council set the recall election for July 26 with mail ballots being scheduled to be sent out in the beginning of July.

Meanwhile in Thornton: Guilt by association

First-term Councilwoman Jan Kulmann, who represents Thornton’s Ward 4, is facing a recall of her own, but for very different reasons. A group named North Metro Neighbors for Safe Energy – an organization formed to rally against the use of hydraulic fracturing techniques by the energy industry – is fronting a recall effort to remove Kulmann from office. These activists are angered by Kulmann’s ties to the oil and gas industry and what they say is an underlying conflict of interest in votes relating to development issues brought before the council by the industry.

During her day job, Kulmann works as an engineer for Noble Energy, a publicly traded oil and natural gas exploration company with headquarters at World Trade Center-Denver and ongoing operations in the Denver-Julesburg basin. Petitioners believe that Kulmann should, “recuse herself from voting on matters related to her employer.” They say she failed to disclose her professional relationship with the oil and gas industry before her election, according to a news release dated April 4.

But in an editorial entitled, “Another abuse of the right to political recall,” The Denver Post editorial board used the words “ludicrous” and “abuse” to describe the recall effort by North Metro Neighbors for Safe Energy.

“Recall is an important tool for citizens, but it should be reserved for malfeasance, corruption and incapacity on the part of a politician, not for policy disagreements,” the editorial reads.

The alleged conflict of interest

In North Metro Neighbors for Safe Energy’s news release announcing the recall, the organization asserted that Kulmann’s conflict of interest in any votes concerning the nature of the oil and gas industry is evident.

The group contends that Kulmann failed to disclose on the City of Thornton website that she “works as an engineering manager in the oil and gas industry. The conflict of interest is clearly demonstrated,” the group said in a news release.

The recall organizers call into question Noble Energy’s role in the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA), Kulmann’s connection to Noble Energy, and Kulmann’s vote against Thornton’s proposed moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in October.

But Kulmann thinks otherwise. “It’s important to note that there are zero permits for any oil & gas projects in the City of Thornton and there have not been any for some time,” Kulmann said in an email. “All proposed activity is actually in unincorporated Adams County.”

“I’m focusing on the positives that I’ve brought to the community,” Kulmann added. “My background in engineering and project management lends itself to many of the areas that the City is working on as we grow.”

Supporters of Kulmann have noted that she has been actively walking door-to-door in her district, meeting with her constituents face-to-face and advocating for her continued service to the community. “She’s actively campaigning just like it’s election year,” one supporter told The Statesman. “She is sending mailers to voters and out knocking doors, like any good elected official faced with questions from constituents should do.”

Another political operative involved in numerous campaigns across the state wishing to remain anonymous noted the stark contrast between the Donahue and Kulmann recall efforts, “While Donahue has reacted rather bizarrely, Kulmann has just shifted back into campaign mode.”

Thornton’s recall petition circulators have until May 31 to reach the needed 1,600 signatures for a recall election to occur. Recall organizers are optimistic, expressing a goal of 2,000 signatures by that deadline.

Castle Rock organizers are also positive about their chances of ousting Donahue from “his thrown,” while the recall of two more councilmembers there is also underway.

‘Tis another year in Colorado politics, recalls underway even as a major election year hastens on toward November.