Austin4All turns in petition to recall Ann Kitchen

Long awaited light has finally beamed in on the operations of the political action committee known as Austin4All.

The Austin Monitor swung by the Office of the City Clerk on Friday afternoon and found the PAC’s co-directors, Rachel Kania and Tori Moreland, turning in financial documents as well as thousands of signatures on a petition seeking the recall of Council Member Ann Kitchen. Joining Kania and Moreland was Joe Basel, who is named along with both women in an ethics complaint filed against Austin4All by local attorney Fred Lewis.

All three politely declined to comment other than to confirm that they were submitting their signatures.

The city clerk must now verify those signatures, a process that could take up to two weeks. If it is determined that the petition is valid, Kitchen would have five days to decide whether to resign. If she doesn’t, City Council would set the recall election on the next uniform election date.

In short: Since the deadline for setting the May ballot was Friday, the recall question likely won’t go to voters until November. That’s plenty of time for Austin4All to raise more money to supplement the $46,600 in contributions it has already raised, according to the documents the group filed on Friday. The documents show that $17,100 of that haul was in in-kind contributions, which means that the group raised $29,500 in cash; $20,000 came in a single contribution from Joe Liemandt, CEO of the software firm Trilogy. The five other donations were all in the four-digits.

Photo: From left to right: Joe Basel, Rachel Kania and Tore Moreland submit signature and finance documents to the Office of the City Clerk.