Recall Gondek organizer says he’s found his next recall target

The organizer of the petition to recall Calgary’s mayor says he’s moving on to another target.

A day after handing in what he says were more than 70,000 signatures from Calgarians who want mayor Jyoti Gondek removed, Landon Johnston says he’s shifting his focus to his city councillor Peter Demong.

“He’s everything that is wrong with this council,” Johnston told CityNews on Friday. “He thought he could just coast his way out of there without doing anything meaningful for his constituents.”

“If anybody wants to join me on getting rid of Peter Demong, that’s the next target.”

Demong serves as the councillor for Ward 14 and has been on council since 2010. His office told CityNews they were aware of Johnston’s comments but did not provide a statement on the matter.

In order to remove him from office, Johnston would need to collect signatures from 40 per cent of the ward’s population.

“The amount of people that were upset with (Demong) when I was door-knocking in my neighbourhood, we would probably be able to get enough signatures to get him out,” Johnston says.

According to city data, just over 86,000 people live in the southeast ward that includes the communities of Bonavista Downs, Chaparral, Deer Ridge, Deer Run, Diamond Cove, Lake Bonavista, Legacy, Mckenzie Lake, Midnapore, Parkland, Queensland, Sundance, Walden, and Wolf Willow.

That means a successful recall petition would require the collection of around 35,000 signatures.

“It would be a lot easier for him just to resign now,” says Johnston. “We can wait for the legislation to change, or we can do it with the current legislation.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she would consider changes to the province’s recall legislation while on a call with Johnston over the weekend.

The HVAC business owner handed boxes of signatures as part of the recall Gondek petition in to city hall on Thursday, though he admitted the movement had fallen well short of the names needed to actually recall the mayor.

Johnston met with Gondek last month in a 15 minute face-to-face meeting that he described as cordial.

He pursued the recall over several frustrations like property tax increases, the single-use items bylaw, and the banning of fireworks on Canada Day.

The meeting with the mayor came on the heels of a document that revealed claims of a link between the petition and Take Back Alberta (TBA). It showed the campaign is backed by a group called Project YYC, which includes major players within the United Conservative Party and the right-wing group Take Back Alberta.

The thread with the document was deleted and couldn’t be independently verified.