A move to recall District 4 City Representative Cynthia Boyer Trejo has officially hit City Hall, with a notice filed Wednesday at the El Paso City Clerk’s office. The filing starts a 60-day clock for organizers to gather enough signatures to force a recall election, a campaign they say is squarely aimed at her role in the City Council’s fight over the Meta data center deal.
According to the El Paso Herald Post, recall organizers must collect 4,232 valid signatures from District 4 voters within 60 days to compel the council to schedule an election. The petition traces back to the June 9 council vote, when five representatives — Alejandra Chávez, Deanna Maldonado-Rocha, Art Fierro, Ivan Niño, and Boyer Trejo — voted against reopening negotiations tied to the Meta incentives package. Chávez, Fierro, and Niño are already on the November ballot and, as organizers point out, are not eligible for recall under the city charter while they are standing for reelection.
What residents say and how the city is responding
Residents backing the recall have zeroed in on worries about water and power use, along with what they describe as limited public input on the Meta incentive deal. Those concerns drove hours of public comment at recent council meetings. As KVIA reported, speakers pressed council members about long-term strain on local infrastructure while city staff promoted a separate Data Center Policy Framework.
City officials have said in a news release that staff is continuing community engagement while they draft that framework and that the Meta project itself is already under construction. They have also cautioned that trying to terminate incentive agreements in mid-stream could expose the city to legal and financial risk. Construction Review previously outlined the potential legal stakes if the city attempted to walk away from the agreement.
Signature Math could spark a legal fight
Jonathan Zayan, a spokesperson for the recall organizers, told local reporters that the city charter’s formula for calculating the 20 percent signature threshold is ripe for dispute. Zayan argued that if the city used Boyer Trejo’s December 14, 2024, runoff turnout of 2,137 votes as the base, the required signatures would be about 427 — a far easier target than the 4,232 figure cited by both organizers and the clerk’s office. He warned that if the city sticks with the higher number, “it’s actually going to turn into a very heated legal battle.” As reported by the El Paso Herald Post, that apparently simple bit of arithmetic could decide whether the petition ever qualifies for certification.
What happens next
Organizers now have 60 days to circulate their petition and submit signatures to the City Clerk. If the clerk certifies enough valid signatures, the City Council must order a recall election, which organizers say would likely be held alongside November’s municipal races. If the petition comes up short, the effort ends there. If the dispute over how to count the 20 percent threshold is not resolved administratively, it could land in court before any election date is set.
Whichever path it takes, the recall push underscores how contentious data center policy has become in El Paso, and how much political weight is riding on the council’s next moves.
