A sufficient number of valid signatures have been turned in to the Brighton clerk to place Mayor Ken Kreutzer on a recall ballot this fall, as this city north of Denver grapples with a water billing controversy that last month resulted in the termination of the city manager.
The signatures were certified Monday, but a city spokeswoman said the City Council won’t fix a date for a recall election until a protest period expires on Aug. 20. If it moves forward as expected, the recall vote would occur as part of the Nov. 5 general election.
The movement against Kreutzer blossomed following the council’s July 16 firing of city manager Phillip Rodriguez, who told reporters at the time of his dismissal that he was being let go because he had discovered unnecessarily high water rates being charged to residents.
Rodriguez had called for a forensic audit of Brighton’s utility fund, which reportedly held a $70 million water fund surplus. that discovery of utility fund corruption in the city “has officially turned into a council cover-up.”
Kreutzer and four other council members have said publicly that they had lost faith in Rodriguez over an unspecified personnel issue, according to Denver7.
