At Tamarac’s 50th Anniversary celebration, Atkins-Grad tells the audience that she is looking forward to representing them for many more anniversaries.
By: Sharon Aron Baron
There’s one thing you can say about residents in Tamarac.
They don’t forgive or forget.
When City Commissioner Patte Atkins-Grad escaped corruption charges using the “naive” defense and then wanted to come back to office, this didn’t sit well with her constituents.
Although Atkins-Grad was found not guilty of eight felony charges, including bribery and unlawful compensation from father and son developers Bruce and Sean Chait, residents quickly formed the recall committee shortly after Atkins-Grad was reinstated back into office.
Patte was never naive. She has always been manipulative, condescending and used her position to always look for the ‘deal’ placing her personal interest before everyone else. Bottom line is that with Patte, it always has been all about the money.” – Tamarac resident George Stroker.
On Monday, volunteers will be turning in signed petitions from the final round of the recall effort. The total amount of petitions represents 15 percent of the voters in her district.
Once validated by the Supervisor of Elections office, a judge in Broward will set a date for the recall election where voters will be asked “yes” or “no” whether she should be recalled. This will be the first time in Broward County history an elected official will ever be legally recalled.
Before this time, Atkins-Grad will have five days to resign, saving Tamarac taxpayers the cost of a new election.
State law requires the committee to get two rounds of signatures. The first round, which required 10 percent of all registered voters’ signatures, was validated in May.