A grassroots group in the city of Norman, Oklahoma claimed to have surpassed the threshold for the amount of signatures needed to move forward with an official recall election of the mayor, who was responsible for cutting police funding in the city, according to Fox News.
The group, Unite Norman, claimed to have gathered over 20,000 signatures for their petition by the time of the filing deadline on Friday, when the bare minimum required was 18,000.
The recall is targeting Mayor Breea Clark (D-Okla.), who ultimately pushed for a successful resolution by the city council to cut the Norman Police Department’s budget by $865,000, as well as approving the hiring of an auditor “to track police overtime.” In addition to the defunding of the police, Unite Norman went after Clark over an order she issued mandating that face masks be worn at all times whenever residents are out in public.
In addition to Clark, the recall petition also targets four members of the city council who were complicit in Clark’s most overreaching efforts. One of the four targeted members has since resigned out of fear of losing the recall. Upon the filing of the petition, Unite Norma confirmed that they had gathered enough signatures to recall only one other city council member, Alison Petrome, while failing to collect enough signatures to recall the other two.