The recall · Published Oct. 12, 2026
On the recall.
A petition to recall Councilmember Brandy Williams has been started by a citywide political organization that does not speak for the Westside, though some of the people circulating it live here. United Westside is not part of it and did not ask for it. We think it is the wrong tool at the wrong time, run under the wrong banner, and that if it fails it will leave the Westside weaker than it found us. Here is the arithmetic, the history, and what a recall would actually produce if it worked.
We have said on this site that a councilmember who won't represent the Westside can be replaced. That is still true. It is a thing the Westside can do, and the day it decides to, it will not need help. This is about why now is not that day, and why this petition is not that effort.
Why not this one, and why not now
- It isn't the Westside's. Some of the people circulating this petition are our neighbors, and we respect the work. But the effort belongs to a citywide organization with its own agenda, not to the Westside, and the Westside's residents and business owners did not ask for it. Every one of the 4,348 signatures has to come from District 3. The only petition that has cleared the Clerk's desk in this city was carried door to door by residents of the district it concerned.
- Failure is not neutral. A recall that doesn't reach the Clerk, or reaches the Clerk and falls short, is a public vote of confidence in the councilmember it targeted. Williams would be able to say, truthfully, that her district was asked to remove her and declined. That is worth more to her than anything she could buy, and it would be handed to her by people who said they were on our side.
- Even success does less than people think. If she resigned, the five would pick her replacement to serve until April 2027, and that person would stand in the April 2027 election as the incumbent. The five would not just fill the seat for five months; they would choose who runs for it with the advantages of already holding it. If she stood and lost, District 3 would elect a successor for the rest of her term, which is the one outcome that returns the seat to the district without a Council pick in between. The one precedent produced the first result.
- It changes the subject. Right now the City is explaining, badly and three different ways, why it kept an ordinance off the Mayor's desk. The DDA board is weighing a court challenge. A recall drive moves the story from “did the City follow its own Charter” to “outsiders are coming for a councilmember,” which is a story Williams can win.
- The Westside's accountability is already scheduled. District 3 votes on this seat again in April 2029, and on a Council majority in April 2027. Old Colorado City's voters will be asked, by the DDA board's own plan, whether to fund the authority in 2027. Both of those are decided by the people who live here, on a question they chose. That is the principle this whole site rests on, and it does not change because the target is someone we disagree with.
What the Charter requires
Recall in Colorado Springs is governed by Article XII of the City Charter. The rules that matter:
- Who can sign. Only “electors entitled to vote for a successor” to the officer. For a district councilmember, that means registered voters of that district and no one else. A signature from outside District 3 does not count.
- How many. At least 25% “of the total ballots cast in the last preceding election for the office of such Councilmember.”
- How fast. Petitions “shall be returned and filed with the Clerk within sixty (60) days from the issuance of such blank petition forms.”
- What then. The Clerk has 30 days to examine the signatures. If the petition falls short, the committee gets 30 days to add more. If it is sufficient, the officer has five days to resign. If they don't, Council sets an election 30 to 60 days out.
- If they resign. Council appoints a replacement within 30 days, to serve “until the next general municipal election.” The next one is April 6, 2027; the district then elects someone to the rest of the term.
- “For the recall of a district Councilmember, the petition must be signed by electors entitled to vote for a successor of the incumbent sought to be recalled and such signatures must be equal in number to at least twenty-five percent (25%) of the total ballots cast in the last preceding election for the office of such Councilmember.”City Charter § 12-30(c)(1)(ii)
- “If a vacancy occurs in the office of a Councilmember more than sixty (60) days prior to the next general municipal election, the Council shall appoint an eligible person to fill such vacancy within thirty (30) days of the date of vacancy until the next general municipal election.”City Charter § 3-50(a)
- “The Council, if the officer sought to be removed does not resign within five (5) days after the attachment of the Clerk's Certificate that a sufficient petition has been filed, shall order an election…”City Charter § 12-60(a)(1)
The numbers
Williams won District 3 on April 1, 2025, with 6,509 votes out of 17,389 cast in the race, a five-way contest she took with 37.4%. Twenty-five percent of 17,389 is 4,348 valid signatures, every one of them from a registered District 3 voter, in 60 days.
Signatures get thrown out. People sign twice, sign from the wrong district, move, print instead of sign, or give an address the Clerk can't match to the rolls. The only recent petition to survive the Clerk's review in this city fell 159 short on its first filing and needed the 30-day cure to get over the line. A campaign that needs 4,348 valid signatures needs to collect something well above that.
| Recall | Ballots cast in last race | Signatures needed |
|---|---|---|
| Bailey, District 2, 2025–26 | 7,054 (unopposed) | 1,764 |
| Williams, District 3, 2026 | 17,389 (five candidates) | 4,348 |
The Charter counts “total ballots cast” for the office; the figure here is the certified vote total for the race, the closest public number. The City Clerk's own count may differ by a handful.
The one successful petition in this city's recent history needed 1,764 signatures, because the councilmember had run unopposed and the race drew 7,054 ballots. Williams's race drew two and a half times as many. The bar for her is two and a half times as high.
What recalls have done here
When the City Clerk certified the petition against District 2's Tom Bailey this March, the Gazette reported that City staff, working with the Pioneers Museum, could not find a successful recall election in Colorado Springs in a hundred years. The 2015 recall election against Helen Collins failed; voters kept her. The 2022 petition against Wayne Williams fell short. The 2022 petition against Stephannie Fortune, District 3's councilmember at the time, never reached an election.
The Bailey petition is the exception, and it is worth looking at closely, because it is the model this one is copying. It began in October 2025 and was certified March 6, 2026: four and a half months of door-to-door work by District 2 residents, against a councilmember who had been elected without an opponent, in a district where 1,764 signatures was the whole job.
And what it produced
Bailey resigned rather than face the election. Under the Charter, a vacancy is filled by Council, not by voters. Council appointed Ken Casey, 5 to 3.
Ken Casey is one of the five votes that dissolved the Old Colorado City DDA. Twice.
That is not an argument that the Bailey recall was wrong. It is an argument about what a recall is. If the councilmember resigns, the petition does not put the district's voters in charge of the seat. It puts the seat in front of the same Council majority that cast the votes the petition is angry about, and they choose who sits in it until the next general municipal election, April 6, 2027. Casey holds District 2's seat on exactly those terms, and when District 2 votes in April 2027 he will be on the ballot as the sitting councilmember. The district gets its election, with a candidate the Council majority chose already in the chair.
Where United Westside stands
We are not part of this petition. We did not ask for it, we are not circulating it, and we will not be sending it to the list. We will not campaign against it either; anyone who wants to spend their own time collecting signatures is free to, and some of those doing it are Westsiders.
If the Westside ever decides to recall its councilmember, it will be Westsiders who decide, Westsiders who circulate, and Westsiders who sign. On that day the 4,348 will be a number we already know how to reach, because we will have built the list that reaches it. That is what we are building now.
What to do instead
The useful fight this month is the one the City is losing: an ordinance kept off the Mayor's desk in defiance of the Charter's plain words. Write the Mayor. Write the four who voted no. Get on the list, so that when the Westside does act, it acts as one.
Sources
- City Charter § 3-50 (vacancies) and Article XII (Recall, Initiative, and Referendum), §§ 12-10 through 12-60 — City of Colorado Springs code library
- District 3 results, April 1, 2025, certified — Ballotpedia; District 2 results, same election — Ballotpedia
- City of Colorado Springs, “City Clerk declares recall petition for District 2 Councilmember sufficient,” March 6, 2026 — coloradosprings.gov
- Colorado Springs Gazette, Cleo Westin, “Colorado Springs City Councilmember Tom Bailey to face recall election,” March 6, 2026 — gazette.com (the 1,764 threshold, the 159-signature shortfall and cure, the 2015 and 2022 history, and the hundred-year note)
- Colorado Springs Gazette, “Ken Casey tapped by City Council to fill vacant seat in drama-filled meeting,” April 7, 2026 — gazette.com
- How Casey voted on the DDA, both readings — unitedwestside.org/dda
We have not named the group behind the petition, and will not. Its statement of grounds, once filed with the Clerk, is a public record. Correction, Oct. 12: an earlier version of this page said a Council appointee would hold the seat until April 2029. Under Charter § 3-50 an appointee serves only until the next general municipal election, April 6, 2027, when the district elects someone to the rest of the term. The history section and reasons 3 and 5 were revised accordingly. Corrections: every figure on this page comes from a document linked above. If we have something wrong, write info@unitedwestside.org and we will correct it here, with a note saying what changed.