McKinney recall organizers are pushing back after former Mayor George Fuller said the community “deserves to know” who is willing to damage the city through the recall effort and warned that petition signers’ names and addresses would become publicly available.
Days before Fuller posted his warning, City Manager Paul Grimes said he was “disgusted” by people who “tried to use their own faith to attack or belittle another” during the August 4 mosque meeting. He also praised city employees for managing “sometimes mob-like behavior,” according to an internal email The Dallas Express previously obtained.
The McKinney Recall Committee responded that public access to a government record is “not a license for political intimidation.” It also disputed Fuller’s portrayal of the campaign as an effort to punish officials for approving the mosque site plan.
Fuller now serves on the McKinney Community Development Corp. board. The petition drive targets Mayor Bill Cox, At Large 1 Council Member Ernest Lynch, District 3 Council Member Geré Feltus and District 1 Council Member Justin Beller.
Recall organizers say campaign extends beyond mosque vote
John Aselton, the petitioners’ committee notice designee, previously told The Dallas Express that the recall concerns a broader record, not one City Council decision.
“This recall campaign is about restoring accountability and public trust in McKinney’s city government,” Aselton said. “Residents have repeatedly raised concerns about spending, transparency, growth, infrastructure, and whether City Hall is listening to the people it serves.”
“Ultimately, this is not about one person or one issue,” Aselton added. “It is about giving McKinney voters the lawful opportunity to decide whether their elected officials still have their confidence.”
McKinney National Airport has become one local flashpoint over spending and infrastructure. In May 2023, 58.69% of voters rejected a $200 million bond for a larger commercial terminal, but officials later advanced a smaller 46,000-square-foot terminal with alternative funding.
McKinney also agreed to pause a Travis County bond-validation case while a Collin County lawsuit challenging $30 million in airport-related MCDC bonds proceeds. Officials maintain voters rejected only the financing mechanism, while opponents say the new project disregarded the election’s result.
Official records support Fuller’s description of the council’s legal role in the mosque vote, but the recall filing does not identify that vote as the campaign’s reason.
Fuller tells signers to answer for ‘consequences’
Fuller wrote that residents have the right to sign a recall petition and campaign against elected officials, but he characterized signing as a political act that should carry public accountability.
He said filing the completed petitions would make signers’ names and addresses available for lawful disclosure and that their signatures “will not exist in some private vacuum.”
“Exercise your rights. Sign the petition if you believe in it,” Fuller wrote. “But own it.”
Fuller then linked that disclosure to the effects he said the campaign could have on McKinney.
“If you put your name behind an effort to remove elected officials for following the law, be prepared to stand publicly behind your decision and be accountable for the consequences it has for this community,” Fuller wrote.
“And this community deserves to know who is willing to damage McKinney in pursuit of this effort,” he added.
Fuller’s post identified the five voters serving on the petitioners’ committee but did not publish their home addresses.
Warning draws divided response
Multiple commenters said his references to signers’ addresses and “consequences” sounded threatening or intimidating, while others questioned whether the message amounted to a warning about doxxing. One commenter wrote, “I’ll be signing it just so everyone knows.”
Other commenters defended Fuller, arguing that the council could not deny a compliant site plan on religious grounds and thanking him for speaking against religious bigotry.
Fuller argued that organizers targeted the four officials for performing a legally required duty during the council’s August 4 approval of the McKinney Islamic Association’s site plan.
He also said opposition surrounding the project had included misinformation and anti-Muslim rhetoric that could harm the city’s reputation with businesses and prospective employers.
The committee rejected his characterization in a statement provided to The Dallas Express.
“There is a profound difference between lawful public access to a government record and invoking residents’ home addresses while warning them to ‘own’ their decision and face ‘the consequences,’” the committee said. “A public record is not a license for political intimidation.”
Disclosure is possible, but publication is not automatic
Texas election law requires a petition signer to provide a signature, printed name and residence address, along with either a date of birth or voter registration number, according to the Texas secretary of state.
Once organizers submit a completed petition, the Texas Public Information Act generally allows members of the public to request it, subject to applicable exceptions. The law requires a person seeking existing records to submit a written request to the government body that maintains them.
Fuller is therefore correct that petition information may become publicly accessible after filing. However, the Public Information Act does not itself require the city to automatically publish every petition online.
Texas law separately protects residence addresses in voter-registration records for certain voters, including some government personnel and victims of specified crimes.
The committee said it would comply with public-records law and safeguard the petition papers while they remain in its custody.
Mosque vote was ministerial, but recall cites broader record
The McKinney Islamic Association requested a zoning change in 2024 that would have allowed one building of approximately 37,000 square feet, exceeding the property’s 15,000-square-foot limit on individual buildings.
After the Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommended denial, the association withdrew the request and returned with a three-building campus totaling 32,573 square feet.
City staff found the revised site plan compliant with the property’s existing zoning and said it required no rezoning, variance or design exception.
“Under Texas law, the governing body responsible for approving site plans has the ministerial function of approving those plans that comply with the zoning and development requirements of the city,” staff wrote in the Planning and Zoning Commission agenda.
The property’s existing zoning already allowed religious assembly, leaving the council to determine only whether the site plan met applicable development standards. City staff said it did, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The recall affidavit, however, states one ground: “A loss of public confidence in the ability of the officers named herein to faithfully represent the citizens of the City of McKinney.”
The committee said the filing concerns the council’s broader record and “is not a religious grievance.”
Fuller wrote that an initial affidavit was filed by “some” people who did not live in McKinney. The committee disputed that account, saying the city raised a voter-registration question about one affiant.
The committee said it replaced that person with another registered McKinney voter, resubmitted the affidavit and received the official petition papers from the city secretary.
McKinney Recall said it must collect 5,805 valid signatures from registered McKinney voters by September 26.
Former Dallas mayors issued similar warnings
McKinney Recall has no stated connection to Dallas HERO, but both citizen-led petition efforts drew warnings from former mayors that they could damage their cities.
Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk compared the Dallas HERO proposals to “rolling a hand grenade into City Hall and destroying it,” while former Mayor Mike Rawlings called them “very, very dangerous.”
Dallas voters later approved two of the three proposals, and Rawlings subsequently urged state lawmakers to override Proposition S, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
In McKinney, the recall committee said residents should review the affidavit and public record before deciding whether to sign.
“Signing a recall petition is a lawful act of civic participation expressly protected by the City Charter,” the committee said. “McKinney voters do not need to be warned about accountability. They are the ones demanding it.”
Provided by Dallas Express
