A petition to recall Medicine Hat Mayor Linnsie Clark failed to reach the required number of signatures. (Photo: Pattison Media)

By Eli J. Ridder

Medicine Hat mayor recall petition fails, gets one-third of required signatures

Dec 11, 2023 | 5:46 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Mayor Linnsie Clark will keep her job after a recall petition fell short of the required number of signatures, petition organizers told Pattison Media on Sunday, December 10, 2023.

The petition received 7,843 physical signatures. With the deadline looming on Monday, organizers confirmed that the petition was approximately two-thirds short of the numbers required.

Nicole Frey, who led the mayor recall effort, acknowledged it would be a difficult task to get the required signatures of 40 per cent of eligible voters, or about 25,000 residents.

“We knew going into this is was a hard bar to meet,” Frey said. She added there were still positive takeaways from the effort.

“We had an amazing team of volunteers and citizens in action,” explained Frey. “I don’t define success merely as the number of signatures achieved.”

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The recall petition was launched on Oct. 12 by Frey, who said then it was not an attack on the mayor but a response to broader dysfunction at city hall.

A separate petition by Frey on Change.org outlined a number of complaints, including soaring energy prices and increasing drug use and homelessness. It called Clark “an inexperienced, ill-equipped Mayor.”

The City of Medicine Hat recently decided to “temporarily limit communication” with Frey, saying requests she has made to staff have been “accusatory and unconstructive.”

A petition calling on the municipality to inspect the City of Medicine Hat was started by Frey soon after the recall effort in November. That petition has received 7,937 signatures so far, short of the 20 per cent of the population required for an inspection.

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