Man organizes recall effort against four council members

BY CESAR NEYOY, SPECIAL TO THE SUN
Dec 12, 2006

The San Luis, Ariz., man who is organizing a recall effort against the city's mayor and three city councilmen is the husband of a former city administrator who resigned earlier this year after the mayor and councilmen were elected.

William Cordova, husband of former City Administrator Rosie Cordova, recently formed the political committee Citizens for True Government, which filed papers about a week ago to begin recall efforts against Mayor Juan Carlos Escamilla and Councilmen Rafael Torres, Marco Antonio Reyes Jr. and Archibaldo Gurrola.

Rosie Cordova resigned in May and received severance pay of about $55,000 under an agreement approved by the council that was in place prior to Escamilla, Reyes, Torres and Gurrola.

In an interview with The Sun at the time, Cordova said she chose to resign because Mayor-elect Escamilla would not tell her whether he wanted her to remain in her post once the new council took office.

William Cordova said the recall effort has nothing to do with his wife. He claims the current council, dominated by Escamilla and other recall targets, are undoing the successes of the previous council headed by former Mayor Nieves Riedel, and that "if we continue like this, San Luis will not have sufficient infrastructure to grow."

If the committee proceeds with the recall effort, it will be at least the sixth in the city in the past five years.

A follow up on the previous story. -mm