An effort in Granite Shoals, Texas, to recall Mayor Carl Brugger and Councilman Bruce Jones was approved for the ballot after petitioners submitted enough valid signatures. The recall election against Jones will be held on May 1, 2021. Brugger resigned on Oct. 13, 2020, four days after the signatures were verified.
Brugger cited the recall effort as a reason for his resignation. He wrote in his resignation letter that he hoped that stepping down would reduce tensions in the city. Brugger was first elected in 2015 and would have been unable to run for re-election in 2021 due to term limits.
The recall effort was initiated by the Citizens’ Rights Group of Granite Shoals in August 2020 in response to a unanimous vote by the city council on Aug. 4 to give City Manager Jeff Looney a $37,000 raise and four weeks of vacation. On Aug. 11, Mayor Pro Tem Jim Davant made a motion to rescind the pay increase. The motion was seconded by Councilman Ron Munos, but the motion failed by a 5-2 vote. Brugger, Jones and Councilmembers Libby Edwards, Steve Hougen and Will Skinner voted against the motion.
Davant defended the decision to vote in favor of a raise for Looney. He said, “He’s done an excellent job. He has 34 years of experience, and he has a good education. We did a survey with a third party. They came back with midpoints, minimums, and maximums. When we looked, Jeff Looney was at rock bottom. I know people are critiquing us. It’s easy to pick cities in West Texas (to compare to Granite Shoals). Those cities aren’t adjacent to Austin and to us, and they don’t have the cost of living we have here.”
Recall organizers were required to submit valid signatures equal to 6.5% of the city’s registered voters—152 signatures—to force a recall election. On Oct. 9, 2020, City Secretary Elaine Smith announced that 186 signatures were found valid out of the 221 signatures handed in.
In 2019, Ballotpedia covered a total of 151 recall efforts against 230 elected officials. Of the 66 officials whose recalls made it to the ballot, 34 were recalled for a rate of 52%. That was lower than the 63% rate and 57% rate for 2018 and 2017 recalls, respectively.
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