Recall effort against Sanford Commissioner Wiggins fails for lack of signatures

The effort by a group of Sanford residents to oust Commissioner Kerry Wiggins has failed after falling short in collecting the  required number of signatures in a petition drive, a city official said Tuesday.

The Seminole Supervisor of Elections Office informed City Clerk Traci Houchin on Monday that the group, Concerned Citizens Task Force, submitted a petition with only 844 valid and verifiable signatures.

That’s 162 signatures short of the 1,006 — or 10% of registered voters in Wiggins’ District 2 — required by state law for the recall effort to advance.

The group claimed this month it had 1,010 signatures when it turned in its petition to the city. Houchin then handed the document to the Supervisor of Elections Office for verification.

In a statement released by the city Tuesday, Wiggins said he looks forward to continuing to serve as commissioner for District 2, which includes the historic Goldsboro community. Wiggins was elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022.

“I have been fully confident that my service to the community would continue and that the unfortunate initiation of the process against me would fail,” he said. “Fail it has.”

The city’s statement said Concerned Citizens Task Force cannot add more signatures to the existing petition to meet the requirement. “In accordance with state law, the matter shall be at an end,” the city said.

Led by resident James Davis, the group argued Wiggins failed to bring affordable housing to the mostly low-income district as he and other city leaders had long promised.

The task force launched its effort to remove Wiggins after the mayor and four commissioners — including Wiggins — agreed in May to spend $760,000 to buy land from the Sanford Housing Authority and use it to build a sports complex for after-school athletic events.

The group claims the city should have used the eight acres off off Mulberry Avenue to build affordable housing complexes, instead.

Davis could not be reached for comment.

At the March 11 city commission meeting, an angry Wiggins pointed out that over the past two years, two apartment complexes with a total of 144 units for low-income families were built within his district.

He and other city leaders added that the funds the city paid to the Sanford Housing Authority for the vacant property will eventually go toward public housing projects in that area. And the athletic fields will benefit the community, Wiggins said.

mcomas@orlandosentinel.com