The Columbia Heights City Council and mayor voted on a motion Monday evening asking Council Member KT Jacobs to step down from office and resign.

Jacobs abstained from the vote, saying she would not resign at this time.

Last year, the previous council censured Jacobs, and other members called for her resignation.

“I feel when you are elected to be an official in your city, that your name, your word, needs to be paramount to everything that we hope of it to be, and I don’t have faith in that anymore,” said Mayor Amáda Márquez Simula.

Last fall, an independent investigation revealed that “KT Jacobs has failed to conduct herself ethically and in accordance with the city council code of conduct.”

The report detailed an alleged phone call by Jacobs to a city council candidate questioning if he was quote “really biracial” and whether he had been raised in a white or black household.

Jacobs denied making the call, saying it was a relative using her phone and apologized for what had taken place, according to the report. 

The investigator wrote that Jacobs had “not been truthful.”

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS made numerous requests to Council Member Jacobs asking to speak with her.

The man who received the phone call that launched the investigation, Justice Spriggs, was recently elected to the City Council.

Spriggs on Monday voted with the rest of the council, asking Jacobs to resign.

“This is a difficult situation for our community, it’s a matter of principle,” said Thomas Kaiser, who is helping lead a citizen’s petition effort trying to recall Jacobs. “Unacceptable behavior, it’s something that can’t easily be moved on from.”

Recall organizers have scheduled a “kick-off meeting” on May 30 at 5 p.m. at Huset Park in Columbia Heights.

Organizers say they will begin going door to door trying to collect enough signatures to make it on the ballot in the coming weeks.