Tom Harrison

Tammye Nash | Managing Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com
A coalition of Plano residents on Wednesday submitted a petition calling on the city to hold an election to recall Place 7 Councilman Tom Harrison, in the wake of a number of what they say are racist and bigoted posts on Harrison’s Facebook page.
Harrison has apologized for any “unintentional hurt” he may have caused, but he has refused calls by other city council members, including Mayor Harry LaRosiliere, to resign from his seat, despite unanimous vote by the other council members to censure him.
David Smith with One Plano Our Plano, the organization seeking Harrison’s ouster from the council, said the group needed to have 2,791 verified signatures on the petition to force a recall, and they submitted 4,425.
City spokesman Steve Stolar explained that the Plano City Secretary’s office now has five days to validate the signatures and then report to the City Council. He noted that One Plano Our Plano submitted 568 pages full of signatures on the petition.
The fifth day from the day the petition was submitted will be next Monday, April 9, the day of the council’s next scheduled meeting, and he said City Secretary Lisa Henderson will likely report to the council at that meeting.
If at that time Henderson has validated at least 2,791 or the 4,000-plus signatures submitted, Harrison “will have one last chance to resign on his own, and if he doesn’t, the city council has no choice but to set the recall election,” Smith said.
Stolar said that the efforts to oust Harrison began after he shared a meme on his Facebook page calling for President Trump to “ban Islam in American schools.” When that post was made public, Stoler said, LaRosiliere and other council members called for Harrison to resign immediately. When he refused, the council voted to censure him.
Stoler also noted that other posts on Harrison’s Facebook page have since surfaced, including one he re-posted May 25, 2017 — originally dated May 19, 2017, the day that a statute of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed from public display in New Orleans — that shows a photo of Lee with the declaration, “New Orleans may be taking his likeness down, but we true southerners will honor him today.”
Another one, shared by Harrison on Nov. 5, 2016, includes a photo of African-Americans working in a cotton field and a photo of African men with their hands chained behind them and chains around their necks. It reads: “In the 19th century all slave owners were
Democrats. In the 21st century, all slave owners are Muslim. Their allies are the Democrats. Democrats: Supporters of black slavery then. Supporters of black slavery now. That’s a fact.”
Harrison said Wednesday, through a spokesman, that he is “neither a racist nor a bigot,” that he has plenty of supporters who believe in his brand of conservatism, and that he is confident he would win the recall election “and win it handily.”
Also according to the spokesman, Harrison claims that he has never seen some of the posts being attributed to him, and that, “Anyone that knows me will attest to me not being ‘anti-‘ anything.”
Smith said that One Plano Our Plano was able to collect petition signatures quickly and in large numbers because the recall effort is an “all-volunteer, citizen-led” effort. He said that large numbers of voters oppose the kind of bigotry that Harrison’s Facebook posts evince and that Harrison’s views do not reflect the attitude of the city of Plano and the majority of its residents.
“Bottom line — open bigotry has no place on our city council,” Smith said.
Stolar explained that each of Plano’s eight city council members holds a specific place on the council — including the mayor, who holds the Place 6 seat — but that all eight are elected at large, which means residents across the city vote on all eight seats. Only candidates/council members in Places 1, 2, 3 and 4 are required to live in the specific district designated by their Place numbers, but even they are voted on city-wide.
Plano council members serve four-year terms and are limited to two terms. Stolar said Harrison was elected in 2015, and that the number of valid signatures required on the petition is based on 30 percent of the number of votes cast in the 2015 council election.
Senior Staff Writer David Taffet contributed to this report.