Ginny Chadwick

Facing a recall election after breaking a campaign promise to improve the city’s marijuana decriminalization ordinance, Columbia, Missouri city councilwoman Ginny Chadwick tearfully resigned at Monday night’s City Council meeting, according to The Daily Chronic, a website that caters to marijuana news.

Chadwick’s resignation took effect at noon Tuesday. She made the decision to resign when she learned that community groups successfully submitted enough petition signatures to trigger a recall vote in the spring.

Petitioners needed 249 valid signatures to force a recall election, and they collected 319. Had Chadwick not resigned, First Ward voters would have been presented with a measure on the April ballot asking whether she should stay in office.

Chadwick, who was elected to represent Columbia’s First Ward last April, served a nine-month term in office and had been acused of disregarding her constituents on more than one occasion.

The final straw that triggered her recall was her vote against an ordinance that would have added cultivation of two cannabis plants to Columbia’s marijuana decriminalization ordinance. Columbia has had decriminalized marijuana policies on the books for over a decade. The improvements would have allowed residents to grow two marijuana plants at home.

Chadwick cast the tie-breaking vote against the measure after publicly promising to support the ordinance during her campaign.

[Image Credit: The Daily Chronic]

By Hypatia Livingston

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."Writer, thinker, researcher, philosopher.

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