The city of McKinney is expected to make a formal announcement on Friday confirming that organizers of a recall campaign targeting the mayor and three city councilmembers have successfully gathered the required number of signatures to proceed with an election, according to sources speaking with CBS News Texas.
A total of 7,400 signatures from registered voters were submitted to the city secretary’s office in September. Since that submission, officials have been engaged in a thorough verification process to confirm that a sufficient number of those signatures were valid, meeting the established threshold of 5,805.
The elected officials set to face the recall election include Mayor Bill Cox and councilmembers Ernest Lynch, Justin Beller, and Geré Feltus.
The recall petition drive was initiated following the city council’s approval of plans permitting a local mosque to expand and develop on its existing property.
Campaign organizers maintain that the mosque-related decision was merely one of several instances in which the mayor and council approved measures despite significant public opposition. They point to the expansion of the local airport and the planned Highway 380 bypass as additional examples of such decisions. Organizers have also emphasized that opponents of the recall effort are attempting to characterize it as an anti-Muslim campaign, a characterization they firmly reject.
Former Mayor George Fuller, who has publicly voiced his opposition to the recall effort, expressed his belief that many individuals who signed the petitions did so under the impression that they were taking action specifically against the mosque’s expansion. He suggested that those individuals would reconsider their position once presented with the full scope of relevant information.
“I have every confidence that McKinney residents will stand by the good councilmembers,” he stated to CBS News Texas.
