A political action group calling itself Concerned Parents for Youth Sports has targeted Gilbert Town Councilwoman Linda Abbott for recall.
The group took out petitions Monday and now has up to four months to collect 981 signatures to force a recall election.
The effort is headed by Michael Mullen, a board member with local youth football league Top Flight Football.
Mullen could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but paperwork filed with the town clerk says the grounds for recall are:
• Bias in city government.
• Negligence in representation of voters.
• Unfulfilled promises to voters.
In a statement sent to the media, Abbott said the recall stems from recent disagreements between town officials and the football league, which was denied a spot on the Gilbert Sports Coalition in January. The coalition is a group of youth sports organizations that have priority when reserving town-owned athletic fields.
Top Flight’s director of football, Tom Miller, said he’s not involved with the recall effort.
“I am not the one who initiated it, it’s the parents of Top Flight Football,” he said.
But in recent e-mails to town officials, Miller all but promised a recall drive and suggested his wife would run against Abbott in a recall election.
“We just wanted to give this town and Mrs. Abbott one last chance to right a wrong,” Miller stated in an April 23 e-mail to Jim Norman, director of Gilbert’s Community Services Department.
“If not tomorrow, we will pick up the packets and that’s when the parents of Top Flight come into play. We already have enough signatures and we have a candidate, Carla (Miller), to fix things from inside out.”
