A group of St. Charles residents wants to recall Mayor Dan Borgmeyer.
They filed an affidavit Wednesday to start the recall process that alleges multiple potential conflicts of interest involving the mayor, including development deals and hiring.
Borgmeyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The effort to recall the mayor started gaining momentum in mid-August after plans were shared for a data center in the city. The developer behind the plans later withdrew the proposal after public outcry and the city council put a one-year ban on data centers in St. Charles. Previous St. Louis Public Radio reporting linked the proposed center to Google.
St. Charles resident Olivia Cross, who filed the affidavit, said that despite this pullback, the mayor’s dismissal of public concern on the issue was concerning. At an Aug. 19 city council meeting, during which the data center proposal had just been withdrawn, the mayor referred to a large crowd of unhappy citizens as a “lynch mob,” Cross said.
“It's his job as mayor, I think, to listen to the spectrum of citizens that he has,” Cross said. “That's not the kind of behavior that I want to see from an elected official.”
The data center dispute led Cross to dig deeper into Borgmeyer, and she said she and other residents found a pattern of possible city charter violations. The other people who signed the affidavit are Deana Curtis, Amy Fonte, Peter Billing and Kerry Lee Kaufman.
Once the group receives its petition documents, it has six months to collect about 10,000 signatures for the recall to get on a ballot. This number is approximately 20% of the registered voters from the last mayoral election, Cross said. She said she is hoping to collect closer to 15,000 signatures.
