TREASURE ISLAND \u2014 An April 21 recall election set into motion by a group of residents from Treasure Island District 3 to remove their representative, City Commissioner Arthur Czyszczon, from office has been temporarily postponed by a judge from the Second District Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n
Any recall effort would only be voted on by District 3 residents, of which, according to the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections, there are currently 1,132 active voters.<\/p>\n
City Attorney Ralf Brookes told the Beacon the March 23 decision \u201cis just a preliminary stay, while the court considers the facts and the law \u2026 no ruling yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resident who initiated the recall, Richard Matthew agreed, telling the Beacon, \u201cIt\u2019s just a pause to allow the appellate court to review the case.\u201d He added he thinks his case of misfeasance in office \u201cis solid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recall effort stems from allegations regarding text messages sent from Czyszczon\u2019s city mobile phone to Matthew in the early morning hours in September. The texts reportedly asked what Matthew\u2019s wife was wearing, and \u201cDid you kill Charlie?\u201d Also, questioning; \u201cwhen can I clean your feet?\u201d and offering \u201ckisses\u201d to the wife and Matthew, then noting he\u2019s \u201cnot interested.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthew, who told the Beacon he never considered Czyszczon a close friend or buddy to become the target of such a late-night messages, initiated a recall effort against the commissioner. He, and some other residents, garnered enough signatures to get the recall on a city ballot April 21.<\/p>\n
Czyszczon filed a motion with the court to stop the recall.<\/p>\n
In February, a circuit court judge denied the request, so Czyszczon appealed.<\/p>\n
On March 23, a ruling from the Second District Court of Appeal stated, \u201cWe have reviewed the lower tribunal\u2019s order denying a stay, and the order is disapproved. The underlying proceeding, the recall election scheduled for April 21, 2026, and all preparations for the election are hereby stayed until further order of this court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, an attorney representing Czyszczon, J.C. Planas, told 10 Tampa Bay News, \u201cIt\u2019s an accidental text, that\u2019s it. If he had grabbed his regular phone and texted, it would not have been misfeasance.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the issue first came to light from the resident, Czyszczon said insomnia caused him to act erratically. \u201cI apologize for the texts. In recollection of the events, I certainly was not thinking clearly from insomnia. My passion is for the city of Treasure Island. My conduct did not reflect the professionalism I want of myself or any of my constituents. I hope to move forward accordingly in the best interests of the city. There will be no further comment.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few hours after the incident, Czyszczon texted the resident, who told commissioners he feared for his safety and that of his wife, again to apologize for the earlier text.<\/p>\n
On March 23, Czyszczon told the Beacon he has no further comments on the advice of his attorney.<\/p>\n
The appellate court will now rule on whether to allow the recall election to proceed or cancel it.<\/p>\n
Matthew thinks the court will allow the recall election to proceed. But if it doesn\u2019t, he said he will run against Czyszczon if the commissioner is unopposed when his term ends in eight months.<\/p>\n
Voters in District 3 can still send in their mail ballots, which will be counted if the recall is allowed to proceed. The deadline to request ballots be mailed is April 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TREASURE ISLAND \u2014 An April 21 recall election set into motion by a group of residents from Treasure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7452,93855,23558,202,204,203,199,201,200,2151],"class_list":["post-204174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-city-commission","tag-czyszczon","tag-recall-election","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-treasure-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}