EL PASO, Tx., June 19, 2026: On Wednesday, a Notice to Recall District 4 City Representative Cynthia Boyer Trejo was filed with the El Paso City Clerks office. According to our news partner, El Paso News, the “community effort” recall’s spokesperson is Jonathan Zayan, a community activist involved in several projects. Attempts to reach Zayan have been unsuccessful.
However, in a comment to KTSM 9 last night, Zayan said that the recall is what he labeled as Boyer Trejo’s “negligence” towards her Northeast constituents. META is building a controversial datacenter in her district.
The recall effort stems from a vote at the city council on June 9, 2026, where five representatives, including Boyer Trejo, voted against reopening negotiations with META to address community concerns over electricity and water usage the datacenter will be using for operations. Joining in voting against reopening negotiations were Alejandra Chávez, Art Fierro Deanna Maldonado-Rocha, and Ivan Niño. Chávez, Fierro and Niño are up for reelection in November. Chris Canales, who voted in favor of reopening negotiations, also faces a reelection campaign in November.
Because they are facing a reelection campaign, Chávez, Fierro and Niño cannot be recalled under the city’s charter.
The recall organizers have 60-days to collect 4,232 valid signatures from within her district to force the city council to schedule an election to fill her seat. If the signatures are certified, the election will likely be held in November along with the open city council seats. Boyer Trejo can choose to resign or run again for her seat.
Zayan told KTSM that he disagrees with Charter’s exclusion of runoff elections to calculate the 20% for the signatures required. Because Boyer Trejo received 2,137 votes in the December 14, 2024, runoff election, the number of signatures would be 427. Zayan told KTSM that if the city insists on using the 4,232 to validate the signatures, that “it’s actually going to turn into a very heated legal battle.”
Since 2002, there has never been a successful recall of a city representative. A petition to recall Larry Medina, who was sentenced to one year and four months in federal prison for public corruption, failed after city officials declared the signatures insufficient without counting them because they lacked notarized pages.
Another recall effort was launched in 2003 against Paul Escobar. The city rejected the signatures saying they were four shy of the required number of signatures. City officials rejected 30 pages of signatures collected arguing that they were collected by an individual that did not live in Escobar’s district.
In 2009, recalls against Susie Byrd, John Cook and Steve Ortega was launched over a controversy involving city benefits to same-sex couples. The organizer of the recall petitions, Tom Brown, was investigated by then District Attorney Jaime Esparza over allegations that Brown was violating IRS rules for non-profits with his recall effort. Brown’s church was organized as a non-profit.
Brown successfully submitted enough signatures forcing the city to set an election to replace Byrd, Cook and Ortega. However, the 8th Court of Appeals stopped the election. The ruling was on a complaint filed previously to the signatures being validated that alleged that Brown had violated election laws by using his church’s website for the recall. The ruling said that using the website, owned by a corporation, violated election laws prohibiting corporate contributions to elections.
Two recall attempts in 2023 also failed after organizers did not submit sufficient signatures. One was to recall Joe Molinar after he was reprimanded for harassing a female city representative and the second one was to recall Cassandra Hernandez over her use of a city gasoline card.
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