Judge allows Cherokee recall election to proceed

A Dec. 7 recall election against the president of the Cherokee Metropolitan Water District should be allowed to go forward, a judge ruled Friday.

4th Judicial District Judge David L. Shakes refused to intervene in the recall vote against Robert Lovato after hearing a day and a half of testimony about alleged irregularities in the petition-gathering process.

Before issuing a lengthy ruling from the bench, Shakes said he wanted to make it clear he wasn’t taking sides in the recall.

“That issue is a political matter and is up to the voters,” he said.

However, he found fault with all sides in the legal dispute.

Members of the recall committee had shown a “cavalier” attitude toward the rules that regulate the process, Shakes said. During the hearing one witness admitted lying about the petitions he circulated. Another said signatures he gathered apparently were mixed up with ones collected by somebody else.

Lovato failed to present his evidence at an earlier hearing before El Paso County Clerk Bob Balink, the judge ruled. He also found that the clerk’s office should have challenged some of the petitions that were submitted.

But even if all of the disputed signatures were tossed, Shakes said it was likely that the recall petitioners had gathered more than the 300 valid signatures required for an election.

Lovato’s lawyers had asked Shakes to either halt the election or withhold the results until the complaint could be heard at trial. They argued that Balink failed to adequately investigate Lovato’s complaints of improper petition gathering.

Balink’s attorney John Zakhem countered that if mistakes were made in the petition process they were not substantial and that it would be an extreme measure not to allow the election to continue.

Zakhem said his client was satisfied with the ruling. Lovato’s lawyer Charles Houghton said court orders to stop elections are rarely granted.

“We’re happy that the judge ruled that the circulators acted with callous disregard for the rules in the statute,” Houghton said.

Lovato, a member of the Cherokee board for six years, said he’ll focus now on trying to win the election.

Mail ballots were sent out Monday and a few already have been turned in, county election officials said.

The district provides water and sewer service for about 17,945 customers east of Colorado Springs.

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