Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz petitions Superior Court to suspend recall effort against him

Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz is asking the county’s Superior Court to order the suspension of a recall effort against him until the court reviews the proceedings thus far in the initiative.

In a petition filed Wednesday, Girtz asks that the court’s review include an examination of the sufficiency, or lack thereof, of the grounds stated for the recall effort. Girtz also asks that the court review “… the facts, if any, upon which the grounds in the Application (for recall) are based… .”

Also, in his petition, Girtz contends county elections officials have mishandled the recall effort and violated provisions of the state Recall Act. Girtz is represented by private counsel with his petition, and no county funds are being expended in connection with his effort.

The recall effort is being led by James DePaola, who has routinely used the name James Lee to avoid association with a 2016 incident in which he was charged with obstruction of a 911 call, criminal trespass and damage to property. According to local police reports from the time, DePaola apparently became irate when his wife put too much cheese on his grilled cheese sandwich.

DePaola came onto the scene in the wake of the killing of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley, who was fatally assaulted in February while running on a wooded trail near the University of Georgia’s Lake Herrick. A 26-year-old undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, Jose Ibarra, is facing murder and other charges in Riley’s death.

At a news conference convened by Girtz in the days after Riley’s death to talk about recent public safety enhancements and to address claims that Athens-Clarke County is a “sanctuary city” despite having to certify annually to the state that it does not provide sanctuary-type services, DePaola was the loudest among a group of about a dozen protesters, calling for Girtz to resign.

Some days later, at the March 5 meeting of Athens-Clarke’s mayor and commission, DePaola loudly threatened a recall of Girtz and of District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, Sheriff John Q. Williams and Athens-Clarke County District 2 Commissioner Melissa Link.

The recall effort against Link was subsequently halted when elections officials discovered DePaola was not a resident of her commission district.

More: Athens mayor's emails in wake of Laken Riley death released

Two days after the March 5 commission meeting, the recall effort got off to a rocky start, as the county elections office initially issued DePaola the wrong form for collecting signatures for a recall application. As the first step in a recall initiative, a recall application requires a minimum of 100 signatures.

DePaola was mistakenly issued a form for a recall petition, the second step in a recall effort, which locally would require thousands of signatures from verified registered voters for the scheduling of a recall election.

Elections officials recognized the error, notified DePaola, and within a few days, he obtained the correct form from the elections office.

At an April 1 meeting, the county’s appointed elections board -- a five-member body comprising three commission appointees, and one appointee each from the local Democratic and Republican party organization -- voted unanimously that enough signatures had been collected for issuance of a recall petition, and also that the grounds for recalling the targeted officials were sufficient for the effort to proceed.

But in his petition, Girtz contends that, despite the election board’s vote, the recall application failed to meet the standards for sufficiency because DePaola did not, as required, mark any of the circumstances listed on the form as grounds for recall. Those grounds are malfeasance in office, violation of oath of office, misconduct in office, failure to perform duties prescribed by law, or willful misuse, conversion or misappropriation of public funds.

Girtz’s petition goes on to challenge the required narrative detailing, as the recall application form requires, the “… facts upon which this recall is based… .”

In that space on the recall application form, DePaola wrote that Girtz “violated oath and failed to perform duties prescribed by Ga. law by knowingly operating Athens as a sanctuary city without a voice or vote from citizens of Athens & secretly entering into contract with federal officials and or NGO (non-governmental organizations) to make Athen (sic) a refugee resettlement area.”

In his petition, Girtz addresses DePaola’s assertions individually, and generally rejects them all as “… vague allegations that are legally insufficient to support the … verification” granted by the elections board.

“These statements are conclusory as written, and give no fact(s) regarding place, time, circumstance, dates or even what is meant by these allegations,” the petition notes.

More: What does it mean to be a 'sanctuary city'? Athens area officials offer differing views

In addition to challenging the sufficiency of the recall application, Girtz’s petition, filed by local attorney Amy Gellins, details a couple of alleged procedural irregularities.

In one case, the petition contends, county Elections and Voter Registration Director Charlotte Sosebee failed to immediately notify Girtz in writing that a completed recall application had been submitted, as required by state law. In fact, the petition notes, the county “has never notified Petitioner (Girtz) in writing that a completed application for a recall petition was filed with the election superintendent for verification.”

Also, Gellins notes in the petition that the county failed to tell Girtz that the elections board was convening the special called April 1 meeting at which the sufficiency of the recall application was ratified. In doing so, the petition contends, the county “… violated statutory provisions and deprived Petitioner of the right to challenge the process and sufficiency of the Recall Application prior to A-CC’s (Athens-Clarke County’s) issuance of the Recall Petition.”

Girtz had no comment Thursday beyond the contents of the petition.

And while DePaola is not a target of the legal action being taken by the mayor, he continued to insist Thursday that Girtz “is operating Athens as a sanctuary city.”

He wasn’t familiar with the mayor’s petition, but DePaola volunteered Thursday that “it’s typical of little tyrants like himself to challenge it (the recall effort).”

DePaola is continuing to collect signatures for the recall petition and said Thursday that with a mid-May deadline looming, the recall effort is “halfway” to collecting what he said is the more than 20,000 signatures from registered voters needed to get a recall election scheduled against the mayor.

Once DePaola turns in the signatures, Athens-Clarke elections officials will have to verify that they are, in fact, from registered voters who were qualified to vote in the 2022 election that earned Girtz his second term in office.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz asks court to suspend recall effort against him