In just a matter of months, City Clerk Brenda Ikirt has formally rejected a total of three petitions calling for the removal of city councilmembers and another for the mayor.

However, one local resident, Moe Sinsley, refuses to give up the fight.

In September of this year, Ikirt first rejected the recall petitions taken out on Ward 1 Councilman Steve Troncale and Ward 4 Councilman Robert Hause.

According to Ikirt, these original recall petitions were rejected because of a technicality.

“Arizona law requires strict compliance with all constitutional and statutory provisions, no matter how minor,” Ikirt said in a formal letter in response to Sinsley, who submitted two recall petitions.

Sinsley, a Tombstone resident of nine years, filed a complaint because he felt councilmembers Troncale and Hause showed an inability to perform their duties as public officials and for not knowing the laws and codes of the city.

Sinsley also maintains that the current mayor and council are not being prudent about how money is being spent.

Sinsley admits it was his own clerical error that prevented the original forms from being properly filed.  He had simply forgotten to transfer a notary number from the front of the petition, to the back of the petition.

“I apologized because it was my fault for not double-checking.  It was my error,” he said.

But Sinsley is not the only one who has failed in his attempt to file recall positions with Tombstone City Hall.

Local business owner Mike Carrafa also filed a petition for the position recall of Mayor Dusty Escapule last month.  His filing was rejected on the grounds that he did not submit the petition with a sufficient amount of signatures.

According to Arizona Revised Statute, Carrafa would need to garner 25 percent of the votes in the last election in order to file a formal complaint.

Carrafa undershot the 25 percent of voters by about 10 signatures.

“It was my fault.  We needed 192 signatures, we only got 180-or-so,” admits Carrafa.

Carrafa said he has no plans to re-file.

However, Sinsley continues to work double time in order to ensure the second wave of recall petitions goes through without incident.

“I intend on going after them again,” Sinsley said, “We want them out of office.  Even if they only got eight months left in their term, they should be kicked out before they can do any more damage.”

Sinsley may not have to wait for too long. The Cochise County Attorney’s Office has already launched an investigation into whether the mayor, city clerk or city attorney have ever violated any open meetings laws.

The investigation was formally launched as a result of the action-packed Oct. 13 city council meeting in which Carrafa was booted from Schieffelin Hall for allegedly making “personal attacks” on the mayor and marshal.

The official investigation will be a lengthy process, but so will the progress with the petitions.

Once Sinsley submits his second round of recall petitions, the City of Tombstone has 120-days to respond; each course of action could take several months.

Though Sinsley will not reveal the amount of signatures he has obtained for the new petitions, he admits it has been more difficult to achieve enough signatures this time.

“Some people have been intimidated,” Sinsley said. “Some don’t want to sign because they feel Dusty is going to come after them and put them out of business.”

Many around town are also unclear as to whether Sinsley can legally file the recall petitions a second time.

According to Arizona Revised Statute, after one successful recall petition and one election, no further recall petitions can be filed against the same elected official, unless the petitioners pay the public treasury for all the expenses of the preceding election.

However, this particular statute will not apply to Sinsley’s situation as a petitioner because he was unsuccessful in his first attempt, and no formal election was held for new candidates to run against those that were being recalled.

Therefore, a second wave of recall petitions is clearly within his rights.

Nonetheless, the issue could remain unresolved until the next elections in November of next year.