Recall election held for two Cherokee Metro Water District Board members

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Two board members of the Cherokee Metro Water District now face a recall election in June of 2024. The decision will go to voters after election officials issued a recall vote cast in the district, garnering well over the required amount of signatures to do so.

"300 signatures are required in order to be certified for an election to go forward to a ballot in two weeks' time.  We had collected 437 signatures," chair of the recall committee, Jeremy Atkinson said.

Now, the district's voters will decide whether to take the two board members out and who to replace them with this Summer.

The two board members set for a recall vote are Steven Hasbrouck and Linda Keleher, both of whom have held long terms on the board. Recall documents detail concerns regarding the water quality and the board member's inaction to fix the problem.

A water quality report from the district details that the Cherokee Metro District has a higher water hardness than other surrounding districts.

The report goes on to detail that there are no human health concerns related to water hardness in the district.

However, another concern brought to light in the recall documents is Hasbrouck's behavior in board meetings, calling him a "disruption and a disgrace to the position of the Director of the Board of Cherokee Metropolitan Water District."

Atkinson, leading the committee to get Hasbrouck and Keleher off the board, created a website where he gathered evidence detailing Hasbrouck's behavior in meetings.

When Hasbrouck was asked about these allegations of disruptive behavior, he disqualified the statements.

"Those people made things up to make me look bad. I didn't do anything. They came on the scene, sat in the audience and disparaged us. That's what they did," Hasbrouck said.

For more information on the voting and recall process, click here.