New recall effort filed against Houston mayor

The recall effort focuses on Mayor Roger Purcell's apparent use of emergency lights on the police SUV while he drove with his wife to Fairbanks in December.

Purcell didn't actually have the grant application with him for the trip. The application was for a nearly $400,000 state Community Development Block Grant to obtain fire department rescue equipment.

Purcell said he planned to carry the application to Fairbanks, but photocopying work was not complete when they planned to leave so the application was flown while the Purcells drove. The Purcells picked up the application at the airport and delivered it before the deadline.

Purcell said he made this trip because, after putting in more than 100 hours of preparation on the grant application, he wanted to verify himself that it was complete and delivered to the right place. He said he also met with North Pole officials about a highway traffic safety grant that the community had successfully obtained.

City clerk Steven Cunningham on Monday granted the recall application sponsored by Kathleen Baken-Barney and her husband, David Barney. An earlier recall application against Purcell had been tossed out due to insufficient information.

Baken-Barney and her husband, with 11 co-sponsors, have until April 8 to gather 73 signatures from registered city voters. If they're successful, a special election could be held in June.

Baken-Barney, a 22-year city resident who works at Houston High School, said she filed the application because she was frustrated with the direction the city was going. With the Fairbanks trip and another that month Purcell and his wife took to Virginia to drive a rescue vehicle the city purchased back to Alaska, Purcell has been a focus in the news and within the city. Not everyone has approved of how he handles things.

"The dog thing really got to me," she added, referring to the Feb. 2 shooting of eight animals at Houston Animal Control. The animals had been in city custody for months until Houston Police Sgt. Charlie Seidl shot them. Seidl, whom the city council fired last week, said Purcell ordered him to kill the animals. Purcell has denied making that order.

FLASHING LIGHTS

Baken-Barney's application was accepted, Cunningham said, because it was much more specific than an earlier recall application against Purcell.

The earlier application mentioned five incidents in which petitioners believed Purcell erred, but none of them went into great detail, due to a 200-word limit on the application. Baken-Barney focused on a single incident and went into more detail.

The Houston City Council authorized Purcell's trip, but the recall application states that Purcell wrongly activated the vehicle's emergency lights, a violation of state administrative code.

In the application, the Barneys called it a display of "gross misconduct in office, incompetence and failure to perform those duties as prescribed by willfully and knowingly operating an emergency vehicle contrary" to state administrative code.

Video footage of the trip is posted on YouTube. The videos show a vehicle driving on snowy roads. In the first video, emergency red and white lights flash for a second, turn off and flash briefly again.

Purcell disputes that the video footage shows him improperly using emergency lights.

"I did not use lights and sirens on the way up there," he said. "A two-second flashing of lights? That's what this whole recall is."

Purcell called the issue a minor traffic violation, perhaps worthy of a fine. It shouldn't be grounds for recall, he said.

LEGAL COSTS

Purcell was elected to the City Council in 2007 and appointed mayor in 2008.

Cunningham said he sought two attorneys' opinions on the matter. Ultimately, he decided it was up to voters to say whether it warrants recall.

"Logically, we would say no. But at the same time, if we're talking about someone in a professional role ... is there a higher standard for that? I went back to (the idea) that it's not the clerk's role to determine," Cunningham said. "It's up to the people."

Purcell, meanwhile, chalked the recall effort up to another move by a group of city residents who prefer to criticize his efforts instead of getting involved.

"They've already cost the city thousands in legal fees. That's just less money for the fire and the police department," he said. "You're getting attacked for working and trying to help the city, and they really don't care."

Find Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.