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Oregon City voters on Tuesday secured the recall of Commissioner Jim Nicita. The vote is the culmination of a long fight over a failed deal to build a shopping mall on top of a local landfill.

The Clackamas County Elections Division reports that 55. 7 percent of the votes were against Nicita.

Petitioners for the recall of Nicita in October collected more than the 1,742 signatures required to bring about the ballot initiative.

Nicita opposed the possibility of urban renewal money being used to help pay for the proposed $200 million Rivers mall project. The development was planned at a landfill site in Oregon City, but the project fell through in June when the developer pulled out because of division within the commission.

Cabela’s, a popular sporting goods retailer, was planned to anchor the 650,000-square-foot mall.

Nicita will not be officially out of office and can continue to vote in City Commission meetings until the county issues a final abstract of votes to the city, the deadline for which is Dec. 26.

Recall organizer William Gifford said that Oregon City now needs to work together to move forward.

鈥淚t’s not a time for petty accusations of how things might have been done, and it’s not a time for rosy optimism either,鈥� Gifford said. 鈥淭here’s still a lot of work to be done, but I hope Oregon City will mend its wounds and move on to a more prosperous economic future.鈥�

Nicita submitted this statement via e-mail:

It’s been an honor serving the citizens of Oregon City as their City Commissioner. I am now looking forward to new opportunities as a private citizen.

In previous interviews, Nicita has defended his commitment to economic development by citing his leadership in the recent hire of聽Eric Underwood as economic development coordinator 鈥� a position Nicita had sought filled since 1998.

The single-issue, mail-in ballot was cast by 32.4 percent of Oregon City’s voters.