Former 22nd Ward Alderman Kenneth Jones and his allies have suffered a serious setback in their attempt to recall 22nd Ward Alderman Jeffrey Boyd. As previously reported in the EYE, on November 22 , Jones and his allies turned in petitions that contained 2,698 signatures to the Board of Election Commissioners. Of those 2,698 signatures, at least 1,613 had to be validated by the Board of Election Commissioners within 10 days after being turned in to certify a recall. On Monday, December 5, the Election Board issued a press release stating that 1,359 signatures had been certified, leaving a deficit of 254.
Of the 1,339 signatures that were not certified, more that 1,100 were not counted because the petitions were not notarized as prescribed by law. The recall provisions give Jones and his supporters 20 days to make up the deficit. The law also gives Boyd and his friends the same amount of time to convince voters who signed the petitions to countersign notarized affidavits to have their names removed from the recall petitions.
Jones, who was fired by Mayor Francis G. Slay from his 70K-plus salary job as director of the Civil Rights Enforcement Agency (CREA) because he insisted on participating in the effort to recall Boyd, faces an uphill battle. Cold weather is hard on activism. It will be very difficult to get enough volunteers to get out in this cold weather to collect the additional signatures required.