What part of "shall" do you not understand?

The requirements of the Tulsa City Charter are plain as the nose on your face. From Article VII, Section 4, here is the duty of the City Clerk with regard to recall petitions:

Within twenty (20) days after the expiration of the time for filing supporting petitions, the City Clerk shall examine the filed supporting petitions and determine whether each petition and the signatures thereon comply with the requirements of this Article.

What are the requirements with regard to signatures in Article VII?

If the officer sought to be recalled was elected from an election district, supporting petitions to be sufficient must contain the signatures of qualified electors residing in the election district involved equal in number to twenty-five percent (25%) of all those voting in that election district for the affected office in the preceding general election.

The signature of each petitioner on the supporting petitions shall correspond with that appearing on the official voter registration books applicable to the city.

There are three requirements here involving a signature on a recall petition:

1. The signature must be of a qualified elector.
2. The signature must be of a qualified elector who resides in the election district. (Note that that doesn't say, "who is registered to vote in the election district." It must be someone who still lives in the district.)
3. The signature shall correspond with that appearing on the official voter registration books applicable to the city.

So putting those two pieces together, the City Clerk has three things to verify. (1) The City Clerk must verify that each petition signature matches the signature on the voter registration card for the person whose name and address are printed on the petition. (2) The City Clerk must verify that the voter so identified is registered to vote in the district (a qualified elector). (3) The City Clerk must verify that the voter so identified actually resides in the district.

By his own admission, City Clerk Mike Kier has only performed one of the three verifications required by the City Charter.

Mayoral chief-of-staff Clay Bird's comments last night to the City Council about how things are done with state and county petitions are beside the point. Tulsa's recall process is created by our City Charter, and the City Charter places specific requirements on recall petition verification, and if they happen to be more stringent than the rules of other jurisdictions, that's the way it is.

Don't miss Tulsa Topics' excellent coverage of Bird's remarks. Bobby's entry has a link to video of the event -- and it sports a great headline.