A resident calling for a recall election for Edinburg mayoral position held by Richard Molina is coming across some road blocks as the process is taking longer than expected.
Robert Solis of Edinburg filed a signed affidavit on Wednesday to the city secretary requesting a recall election.
“Whether or not those allegations are true, I don’t know, but it does disturb me,” Solis said.
Last week, Molina and his wife, Dalia Molina turned themselves into authorities and both were charged with voter fraud.
Although the mayor is innocent until proven guilty, Solis refuses to wait for a decision to be made in court.
The long-time Edinburg resident provided the city with a blank copy of a petition for recall which he was told could not be used.
“All we thought she was supposed to do was sign them and stamp them,” Solis said. “But apparently the city says that they have to provide us with the proper forms.”
But there’s a problem, according to the City Attorney Omar Ochoa, the city doesn’t know where those forms are.
“Because this has never been evoked before, the city has never had cause to keep that petition form on hand,” Ochoa said. “We’re looking through old archives, we’re looking through old minutes, old agendas. The city secretary’s office is working very hard to try to find this document so we can provide it to the person who submitted the affidavit.”
Ochoa said the delay has nothing to do with protecting anyone.
Once Solis receives the petition forms, he will have 30 days to get at least 25 percent of the number of voters who participated in the election to sign it.
“I wish the process would have been smoother, and that way we could get started with the recall effort,” Solis said. “It’s a little bit frustrating that we have to wait.”
If the city cannot find a council-approved petition blank form, the current city council must draft and approve a form to gather signatures for a recall election.
