Petitioners who want Dacono City Council members Jackie Thomas and J…

Petitioners who want Dacono City Council members Jackie Thomas and Jim Turini removed from office have collected enough signatures to move forward with a recall election.

In an email Thursday, City Clerk Valerie Taylor confirmed that her office had issued an “initial determination of petition sufficiency” and that a final version would be submitted to the council after a 15-day protest period, which is set to expire March 31.

The City Council must then set a date for the recall election.

During the Feb. 13 City Council meeting, Thomas and Turini, along with Mayor Pro Tem Kathryn Wittman and Councilman Danny Long, voted to abruptly fire former Dacono City Manager A.J. Euckert.

The four local officials did not provide any public explanation as to why they terminated Euckart, which led to mounting frustration among several residents, three of whom — Rick Gerk, Megan Thornam and Anthony Cummings — formed a Petitioners’ Committee.

Each recall petition was signed by more than 200 registered voters, thus surpassing the 189 signature threshold.

The 189 amount is 25% of the total votes cast in the last city election involving Thomas and Turini (1,508 votes) divided by the number of council members elected, which was two, in 2021.

The recall petitions allege that Thomas and Turini, “both alone and in concert with others, intentionally withheld information at the (Feb. 13) meeting by not providing timely and full disclosure of potential agenda information; in violation of the Open Meetings Law.”

Thomas and Turini did not return requests for comment for this article.

However, during the March 20 special City Council meeting, Turini provided insight into his vision for the next city manager.

“I think we need to get somebody strongly motivated to growing our business base and market our city to anybody and everybody that will listen,” Turini said. “We would like … franchises, businesses, whoever would be willing to work with us to grow with the city.”

More than a month after Euckert’s firing, Dacono is still without even an interim city manager.

During the March 20 meeting, Finance Director Kelly Stroh said “a current employee” is willing to serve as interim city manager but did not name that individual.

“Staff enthusiastically supports this option as being in the best interest of the city in the short term while council focuses on the recruitment and selection of a permanent city manager for the long term,” Stroh said.

The Longmont Times-Call has filed an open records request in hopes of learning the person’s identity.

“This is also the most economical solution to what will arguably be the city’s most expensive budget year on record,” Stroh said.

The city has paid more than $272,000 since the beginning of the year in city manager salaries, paid leave accrual payout, benefits, taxes and contracted severance pay, Stroh told the council.

“My choice and the choice of all our department heads would be to put an existing staff member in the interim position,” Mayor Adam Morehead said in a separate interview Thursday. “It’s the best thing to continue moving staff forward (and) moving Dacono forward.”