Three Granbury city officials are suing the City of Granbury to invalidate their respective recall petitions, which they claim do not have enough valid signatures.
Mayor Jim Jarratt, Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Wadley, and City Councilman Gary “Skip” Overdier allege that those circulating their recall petitions to collect signatures committed fraud and forgery in doing so.
Background
On July 13, 2026, five recall petitions were filed with the Office of the City Secretary requesting the resignation or recall of Jarratt, Wadley, Overdier, and City Councilmen Zeb Ullom and Greg Corrigan.
City Secretary Carla Walker certified each recall petition on September 8 and forwarded them to the members of the Granbury City Council. Walker had reportedly rejected the petitions initially.
During a hearing on the matter, none of the five members resigned. The City of Granbury therefore has a ministerial duty to enter a recall election order and conduct an election in May 2027, though it has yet to pass such an order.
On October 6, Jarratt, Wadley, and Overdier filed a lawsuit alleging that no recall election may be properly called on their respective recall petitions. They allege that the petitions are invalid for various reasons.
The plaintiffs assert that for a petition to be valid in Granbury, 1,370 complete signatures are required. The document must identify the specific act(s) of malfeasance for which the removal is sought, and the circulator must explain to the signer the purpose of signing the petition for their signature to count.
All signers must be registered to vote in the city, and the circulator must sign an affidavit swearing that they personally observed each signature.
Allegations
The lawsuit asserts that one or more of the circulators “engaged in fraud, forgery, and other non-accidental defects, discoverable only through independent investigation, such that none of the signatures they purportedly collected may count towards the threshold required number of 1,370 signatures.”
Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that at least one of the circulators did not obtain wet signatures on each of the five recall petitions, instead making copies of wet signatures and manipulating such signatures digitally, attaching them to the petition as if they were genuine originals.
At least one circulator is accused of not actually witnessing the signing of the recall petition, thereby invalidating those signatures.
Regarding the petition itself, the plaintiffs claim that it fails to specify each allegation of the officials’ malfeasance and misfeasance “with sufficient certainty and description.” They also allege that some of the signers are not registered voters or do not have a complete date of signature on the petition.
The lawsuit itself does not present any evidence for these claims or accuse any specific circulator, but states that more may be alleged after further investigation.
“To the extent a specific Circulator engaged in these activities, and because they call into question the veracity of what actually occurred, such fraud, forgery and other non-accidental defects leave the Court with no choice but to disqualify all of the signatures purportedly gathered by each such Circulator,” reads the suit.
The plaintiffs are asking the court for an injunction, blocking the city from entering a recall election order until the court can make a ruling on the merits of whether each recall petition is valid.
Kolton Krottinger, a U.S. Navy veteran and Hood County Republican precinct chair who was arrested last year for posting a political meme, voiced his opposition to the lawsuit.
“I’ve seen thousands of comments calling for resignations. A recall election gives these officials a fair opportunity to make their case and lets voters decide,” Krottinger told The Dallas Express. “Instead, they’re fighting to keep that decision out of the voters’ hands. To me, that says holding onto power matters more to them than respecting the people they serve.”
“I believe voters will replace them, whether through recall or when their terms are up. They have burned through the community’s trust, and fighting the election only makes that worse. The people deserve answers, accountability, and a vote. These offices belong to the public, and the people sitting in them need to remember that,” he continued.
Related Litigation
Eva Royer, another Hood County Republican Party official, was also arrested in 2025 for allegedly using the wrong address on election paperwork when filing to run for Granbury City Council.
Royer had reportedly decided to run on the advice of Mayor Jarratt, using her Granbury address. As a real estate agent, she owned multiple addresses but claims to have maintained her residency in Granbury.
After filing to run, Royer was notified by City Secretary Walker that her residency at this address was being disputed and that the Granbury City Council would need to hold a meeting to settle the matter.
Royer subsequently withdrew her application before a meeting was held. Rather than that being the end of the story, Granbury city officials, who are Royer’s political opponents, sought to prosecute her for election fraud.
In April 2025, Royer was arrested by the Granbury Police Department on one count of perjury, a state jail felony, and election fraud, a Class A misdemeanor. In August 2026, she was found not guilty.
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