A second lawsuit filed over a Tulsa city council recall effort

The Tulsa city council is slapped with a lawsuit. Thursday's filing is the second lawsuit filed this week over the recall effort against two Tulsa city councilors. <br/><br/>The Coalition for Responsible

Thursday, April 7th 2005, 12:13 pm

By: News On 6

The Tulsa city council is slapped with a lawsuit. Thursday's filing is the second lawsuit filed this week over the recall effort against two Tulsa city councilors.

The Coalition for Responsible Government started the effort to recall councilors Chris Medlock and Jim Mautino. Thursday, that group filed a lawsuit against the city council, which seeks to force a date for the recall election.

News on 6 reporter Ashli Sims says this is the latest in a flurry of lawsuits over this recall effort.

Earlier this week, a lawsuit was filed to stop the recall of city councilors Chris Medlock and Jim Mautino. Thursday's lawsuit is an effort to move the recall forward. The Coalition for Responsible Government collected thousands of signatures demanding the recall of Chris Medlock and Jim Mautino.

The group says the two councilors are anti-growth and block city business. The city council approved the petition signatures two weeks ago, but they failed to set a date for the recall election. The Coalition for Responsible Government filed their lawsuit Thursday to get a judge to set the recall election date, as soon as possible.

Mautino, Medlock and their supporters filed a lawsuit earlier this week. They argue that it should have taken a resolution to approve the petition signatures. A resolution requires five votes, which the council didn't have. Councilor Medlock had just been served with the lawsuit, but he says this is no surprise. "Apparently since we went in first they're trying to get in quickly to be heard I assume the two issues will probably be joined and arguments will be heard at that point."

Several other councilors did not want to talk about Thursday's lawsuit; some hadn't even been served yet.

Several calls to the lawyers for the Coalition of Responsible Government were not returned.