Members of the group behind the efforts to recall Festus Mayor Sam Richards and three members of the City Council submitted their petitions to the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office Monday afternoon.
Dave Boyer of Ward 1, Kevin Dennis of Ward 3 and Michael Cook of Ward 4 are the council members facing recall elections along with the mayor if the County Clerk’s Office certifies the petitions.
“We met all the constitutional requirements for recall of mayor and council people,” said Erica Carter, a leader of the recall effort, as well as an opponent of the proposed data center project in town, which triggered the recall efforts. “They will be held accountable for not listening to their constituents.”
She said that those behind the recall effort have met the requirements for recall elections.
“We surpassed the number of signatures needed in under 60 days, and now it is up to the county clerk to verify the signatures and direct the council to have the much-needed recall election,” she said. “It was my sincere pleasure in helping gather more than 7,400 signatures to recall the former leadership of our town. I look forward to seeing who is going to take the reins of our new City Council and mayor. The future is bright.”
When contacted Tuesday, Richards said: “At this moment, we don’t know that the petition is legal. We don’t know who funded the petition. We don’t know if any foreign entities are involved, and we don’t know what sophisticated software system might have been used to scrape the internet to collect names.
“What we do know is that the data center I supported in Festus will bring benefits to our community, schools, fire protection and more for decades to come,” Richards said.
The Leader attempted to contact the council members targeted by the recall petitions for comment. Boyer and Dennis said they did not wish to comment, and Cook did not respond by the Leader’s Tuesday deadline.
CRG of St. Louis announced in late 2025 its plan to develop a hyperscale data center on 361 acres north of Hwy. 67 and west of Hwy. CC. CRG, which is the St. Louis-based data center development arm for Clayco, has estimated the cost of developing the facility at $6 billion.
In the Festus project, CRG would develop the property, and then a data center company would operate it, although no operator has yet been identified.
Shortly after the project was made public, large numbers of residents began protesting against it, citing concerns over such issues as its potential water and electricity usage, health risks and other related matters, as well as what they said had been a lack of transparency by Festus officials over steps taken to allow the project to advance.
The council on March 30 voted 6-2 to approve a development agreement with CRG, with council members Staci Templeton and Brian Wehner, both of Ward 2, casting the only no votes. Both had previously voted for annexation and rezoning motions needed for CRG’s data center development project to advance toward its goal.
In the April 7 election, incumbents who had voted in support of the data center development project were unseated by candidates who had opposed the project. Unseating the incumbents were: Karl Weekley, Ward 1; Allen McCarthy, Ward 2; Dan Moore, Ward 3; and Rick Belleville, Ward 4. They were sworn in April 13, and Templeton resigned on the same night.
Richards nominated Aaron Pashia to replace Templeton at the council’s May 11 meeting, but council members voted to table a motion on the matter until their next meeting, scheduled for Tuesday.
The recall election effort has targeted the mayor and the council members whose seats were not up for election April 7. Richards was reelected to a four-year term in 2023, and Boyer, Dennis and Cook were reelected to two-year terms in 2025, so all of them have a year left on their terms.
Mary Fakes, a leader of the recall effort and data center development project opponent, said they found many people eager to sign the petitions.
“We did this in 57 days, under the constitutional requirement of 60 days,” she said. “Our hope is now the citizens will have the opportunity to have a vote on stopping the data center, which is the eventual goal.”
She said the results of the April 7 election point to success for those behind the recall effort.
“I think if you look at the April 7 election it shows how the citizens feel about a data center,” Fakes said. “I believe you will see the same exact thing when this goes to vote.”
Certification of petition signatures
Jefferson County Clerk Jeannie Goff on Tuesday said her office has a monumental task in certifying the signatures on the recall petitions.
“They submitted the petitions about 3:30 p.m. yesterday (Monday),” Goff said Tuesday. “I have 10 days to get it done, from the date of its filing.
“It takes 25 percent of the registered voter signatures of the entire city for the recall of the mayor and 25 percent of the registered voter signatures of the wards (to meet the requirement for a recall election). Each has to be verified by hand.”
If the required number of signatures are certified, the matter is returned to the city or entity from where it originated.
“If it’s sufficient, we have to submit the findings to the (Festus City Council),” she said in a previous interview. “The City Council then orders the question. The county Election Authority will determine when the election will be held.”
She said that a recall election requires a simple majority for a recall to be successful.
Brian Malone of the city’s law firm, Lashley and Baer, submitted the following written statement when previously asked about the Festus ordinance regarding recall elections.
“The statute regarding recall of elected officials in cities such as Festus, section 77.655, (of state statues) states that if the county clerk’s office has deemed the recall petition sufficient, it shall be submitted to the Festus City Council. Then, if the petition is found to be sufficient by the council, it shall be ordered submitted to the voters at an election. So the city would need to evaluate the sufficiency of the recall petition prior to ordering it submitted to the voters.
“If it is found sufficient by the council, a recall election would be scheduled. The timing of such election is determined by the county clerk, per Section 77.600, (of state statutes).”
He said the city’s ordinances cover how a seat would be filled after a successful recall.
“If the recall is successful as to a particular member of the council or the mayor, section 77.660, (the state statute) provides that a vacancy would exist in such office, which would be filled in the manner provided by law.
“For a vacant council seat, Section 115.190 of the Festus City Code provides that the mayor appoints a successor, with the consent of a majority of the remaining members of the council. If the mayor’s seat were to become vacant, the vacancy would be filled in accordance with Section 115.015 of the Festus City Code. That section provides that “nominations of a successor may be made by any member of the council and selected with the consent of a majority of the members of the council.”