The leaders behind a recall effort aimed at ousting three Haines Borough Assembly members turned in signatures required to move ahead with the process.

Borough clerk Julie Cozzi received the signatures Tuesday afternoon and has 10 days to certify that each signer is registered to vote in the borough. Recall sponsor Don Turner Jr. said he collected extra signatures in case not all are certified.

If Cozzi certifies the 258 signatures necessary for each petition, she’ll submit those petitions to the assembly. That will initiate a special recall election that must happen on the ninth Tuesday from when the petitions were submitted, meaning the soonest the recall election could happen is early August.

Turner submitted the original recall petitions on April 5.

The petition cited quotations from emails between borough employees and between assembly members as evidence that assembly members violated borough code and state law in their roles as elected officials.

In the petition, Turner also quotes Haines Police chief Heath Scott in an email correspondence to the borough manager on Jan. 11, 2017.

“‘Based on last night’s meeting as well as several other encounters (documented) I believe Assembly members Morphet and Lende require direction regarding requesting HBPD to provide the blotter,’” Turner’s document states.

It went on, “Coercion of a subordinate in an attempt to affect a personal or financial interest is misuse of his official position,” and stated the Chilkat Valley News, at the time owned by Morphet, stands to benefit from the blotter.

Borough attorney Brooks Chandler found the allegation sufficient against Morphet and Lende based on Scott’s email that efforts they made to obtain the police blotter amounted to using “an official position in order to gain a benefit.” Chandler said it could constitute a violation of code and a misconduct in office.

“I still think the police blotter is something that people in Haines like to read and I think it actually helps the police department and I said it as a suggestion,” Lende said of her interactions with Scott.

Borough police had previously published the report on the department’s Facebook page.

The recall petition also refers to “Morphet, Lende, Gregg, and Jackson communicating on the 33-foot harbor extension by email or phone.”

The petitioners say that communication amounted to a violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act, which prohibits three or more assembly members from communicating outside an official meeting about borough business.

The email in question was sent from Gregg to Lende about approving a 33-foot harbor extension.

“Tom and Ron and I are against it,” Gregg wrote on December 12, 2016. “Need you there too or – another mayoral privilege vote. I really don’t think it is necessary for the harbor.”

Ultimately, the assembly members didn’t act on Gregg’s wish to vote against the extension. Morphet, Lende and Jackson all voted for the 33-foot extension. Gregg voted against it.

Morphet said that just because his name was mentioned in an email doesn’t prove he was involved in the conversation.

“It’s like getting a detention because two kids in the back of the class were talking about you,” Morphet said of the allegation against him.

Chandler wrote that, according to the Alaska Supreme Court, recall determinations should reflect two broad categories, one is “the people’s right to recall their elected officials is to be liberally construed to favor a recall,” and two, “recall is a political process not a legal process.”

Turner said during an assembly meeting that former manager Bill Seward informed him of the emails used in the recall. The assembly fired Seward last December and Seward later filed public records requests for emails between assembly members related to his firing.

Lende and Morphet have called the grounds for the recall “baseless.”

Gregg said: “I’m sure that the voting public in Haines, who overwhelmingly supported these candidates in the last election, will continue to support them in this one. I don’t think that the public’s trust was violated. The only thing that will have happened is that taxpayers’ money was spent needlessly.”