October 3, 2026
Dear editor;
Voters of the City of Aurora, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, and Will Counties, Illinois:
Please vote “Yes” on the Aurora Mayoral Recall Referendum Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Aurora Voters will get to exercise an inalienable right that is a part of our heritage as Americans, to equip ourselves with a new tool, a continuous accountability mechanism for city leadership, and that is the ability to recall the head of City government.
As the second largest city in Illinois, why is a recall mechanism a valuable, legal tool for the voters of Aurora? Why does establishing a legal option for Aurora voters, giving us the ability to provide orderly, city-wide, off-cycle feedback to City government matter?
As American citizens, we are protected by constitutions, the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Illinois. The most foundational purposes of a constitution are to provide legal protections and to guarantee rights for “We the People”. How does a recall mechanism further uphold our constitutional rights? A recall mechanism allows Aurora voters the ability to broadly remind public servants that elected officials are agents of the people, and to ensure elected officials understand that they remain continuously accountable to the electorate, and not just at the time of a general election.
Presently, there are several intentionally-flawed misstatements being made about the Mayoral Recall Referendum, including but not limited to: (1) a minority gets to decide to remove a mayor; (2) elected officials would need to focus on campaigning; and (3) there would be no time for policymaking.
Like any referendum, the majority of Aurora voters would decide the outcome of the November 3 Mayoral Recall Referendum. So let us consider why there is avid fear-mongering against the Mayoral Recall Referendum, by those who hold anti-democratic views.
The “Will of the People” is not a stagnant, inactive theoretical concept, which is only discernible every four years. The purpose of the Mayoral Recall Mechanism is to give the voters of Aurora, more power, and to provide a safety valve for voicing broad, far-reaching, diverse discontent with City leadership. Elected officials must always be focused on governing and not on performative stunts, or campaigning. If an elected official is more concerned with campaigning than governing and policymaking, their actions clearly betray their campaign promises, meaning the people’s business was never their primary concern.
If we were to look at the quality of life in Aurora, what would we say about the state of our City? Aurora has seen a rise in aggravated assault crime, intimidation crime, murder and negligent manslaughter crime, human trafficking crime, con-game crime, credit card/ATM fraud, identify theft crime, theft from motor vehicle crime, drug crime, pornography/obscene material crime, prostitution crime, curfew/loitering/vagrancy, DUI crime, and trespassing crime, when looking at 2026 year-to-date (9 months), in contrast to all of 2024. Is the rise in crime in Aurora a reflection of poor governing and policymaking?
National data shows that recall efforts are most often enacted at the local level. From best estimates, there are at least 39 U.S. States with laws that have enshrined the right of voters to circulate recall petitions to remove local officials. The State of Virginia for example, allows recall by trial instead of election. To be clear, establishing a Mayoral Recall Mechanism for Aurora, is to ensure Aurora Voters have the right to provide our collective feedback more regularly than every four years, like so many other places in the United States.
Based on the discussion points outlined in this letter, we ask our fellow Aurorans to thoughtfully consider the points, and to vote “Yes” on the Aurora Mayoral Recall Referendum.
Curtis Wilson, Aurora, and Aurora Residents for Accountability and Change