Sandoval News

The Edgewood City Council voted to bring a question before voters on the ballot that would ask if the entire governing body of the city should be scraped after residents of Edgewood objected to two of the town's councilors. 

During a virtual town hall meeting, a petition was brought before the council, which asked if the town should move to a commission-manager form of local government instead of the council-mayor form, according to the Independent. The meeting gave the city council 10 days to decide if the question would be put on the ballot for voters to decide. 

A group called CORE (Citizens for an Open and Responsible Edgewood) filed a lawsuit against the governing body of the town on Feb. 1, which called for the removal of Mayor John Bassett from office, according to the Independent.

On the petition brought before the council, Sherry Abraham and Audrey Jaramillo, both members of the town council, signed the petition in favor of the removal of the council-mayor government, according to the Independent.

The question brought before the council was whether or not to ask voters during the August election or ask them during the general election in November, 2020, according to the Independent. 

At the virtual meeting, the mayor took public comments from few people, which includes Adrian Terry and Jerry Powers, members of CORE, and Tom McGill, the founder of CORE. Several people who wished to speak gave their speaking time to Powers instead. 

McGill is in favor of the petition, because he said town decision are being made "in secrecy and darkness," which isn't how the town should operate, according to the Independent. McGill said more citizen input is needed and he thinks the question should be added to the August ballot. 

Powers agreed with McGill and said the question should be added to the August elections, according to the Independent. He also said the town should aim to elect commissioners if the vote on the ballot were to pass.