A group of Cape Coral residents are bringing a petition to recall Mayor Marni Retzer back to the table amid her divorce with a city firefighter Ken Retzer.
Lisa Cohen has been relentless to getCape Coral Mayor Retzer out of office. She's one of hundreds of members part of a Facebook group working on a petition to get Retzer to resign, calling her unfit for the job.
"Since the moment she took office, it was just embarrassment after embarrassment," Cohen said.
The push for the recall first peaked shortly after a scandal between Mayor Retzer and her then ex-boyfriend and city firefighter, Ken Retzer. The mayor at one point claimed she was so afraid of him that she missed a city council meeting; she was in the process of filing a restraining order. The order was quickly dropped and a few weeks later the couple married.
"That's insane," Cohen said. "It's an unstable person that does things like this."
The couple has been married for less than 90 days and the city firefighter has just filed for a divorce. Cohen says she believes Mayor Retzer's personal life has affected her time in office.
"First he was the aggressor, then he became the husband, and now he's going to be the ex-husband all within less than six months," she said. "This is an unhealthy pattern. There's clearly something wrong."
Four In Your Corner went to City Hall to talk to Mayor Retzer about the recall but she was not in her office. FOX 4 sat down with council member Richard Leon who says he's troubled by a different issue. He's filed an ethics complaint against the mayor, asking the state to investigate whether she has failed to report receiving large gifts while in office.
"If she didn't report those properly, we need to make sure she does," Leon said.
The state hasn't responded, so we asked if he thought Mayor Retzer was not fit for the job.
"Those are hardcore accusations that really are opinions," Leon said. "I would say she is fit to do the job so whether or not she is unfit that's a determination of a voter."
Meanwhile, Cohen says she will be meeting with members of the community to push for the recall. The recall is a multi-phase process, the first requires 5% of registered voters to sign a petition in thirty days. The second phase requires triple the amount of signatures in a second thirty day period.
