FARGO - North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger has approved a petition to recall City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn, allowing his opponents to begin gathering signatures.
Petition organizers will need 3,504 signatures from Fargo voters to trigger the recall election, Jaeger said in a news release Thursday, March 16.
The signatures will need to be submitted to the city administrator within 90 days. If there are enough signatures, a special election would be held within 95 to 105 days.
The petition says those signing want Piepkorn out of office "for the reasons of failing to adequately support and represent the entire population within the City of Fargo." It says his "ongoing attack of the refugee population in Fargo is wrong-headed, short-sighted, divisive and dangerous."
Piepkorn has complained that local governments do not have control over the resettlement of refugees, who he claims stress local resources, in part, because of higher crime rates. He wasn't deterred when police said refugees weren't more prone to crime than others in the community.
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Andrew Lenzmeier is chairman of the recall sponsoring committee. The other committee members are Fauzia Haider, Nyamal Dei, Erin Buzick and Ruth Buffalo, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for state insurance commissioner last year.
Piepkorn was first elected to the City Commission in June 2008 and served until 2012. He was re-elected in 2014.
