METAIRIE, La. (WGNO) – Organizers of a petition to recall embattled Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni say they have collected about 50,000 signatures – more than half of the signatures needed to move forward with a recall election.
Yenni admitted in October to exchanging sexually explicit text messages with a teenager in 2015 while he was the mayor of Kenner. He’s also been accused of offering the boy a job at the mayor’s office so they could spend more time together. Yenni has been under heavy pressure to resign ever since he admitted to the scandal.
Members of the Jefferson Parish City Council passed a vote of “no confidence” in Yenni in October, just hours after he made his first public address to the council, asking them to let him do his job.
“The mistakes I have made will never be repeated,” Yenni said in his address to the council. “That is not just my promise to the people, that is my promise to God…Now it is my job to move this parish forward, and I humbly ask you to let me do my job.”
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand and several other high-ranking public officials in Jefferson Parish have also called for Yenni’s resignation.
The recall petition effort, started by Metairie attorney Robert Evans III, must collect signatures from 33 percent of registered voters in Jefferson Parish, which amounts to about 95,000 signatures, in order for a recall election to occur.
Organizers of the recall petition have until April 8 to get the number of signatures they need to proceed with a recall election.
See Yenni’s video commercial response that he paid to broadcast during 10 p.m. newscasts:
