Who Will Be the Next Victim of the Grand Bounce? A nonpartisan, nonjudgmental look at the “Hair-Trigger” Form of Government
"...directed Pacific police department officers to operate as his personal police force in conducting a criminal investigations into the identity of those responsible for distributing negative information and allegations about him concerning his Echo [Oregon} property, which is outside their jurisdiction; [and] Jeopardizing the City's liability insurance coverage by not filling vacant department heads."
Brito brought a box of petitions to Barbara Herrera, Doral’s city clerk, last Tuesday. In an emailed statement, Herrera said she placed the box in the clerk’s office in front of a glass door while she and Doral city attorney Joe Jiménez waited for a police escort to take the signatures to the elections department, which is less than two miles from City Hall.
Jiménez said Brito told him she had scanned all of the petitions and would present them to him the next day. As of Wednesday, the city has not received the copies.Doral City Council is considering changing its recall law so officials can only face a recall once per term.
The "No on Recall" campaign raised $49,750 as of March 29. More than half the money came from firefighters unions throughout the Bay Area, including $15,000 from the San Mateo County Firefighters Local 2400, which aims to represent the Coastside instead of Cal Fire.
Anderson, Cockrell and Rarback each received more than $9,000 in direct and indirect support from the union representing Cal Fire firefighters.
“It is impossible to determine who actually won this election, given the massive breakdown in basic procedures. Of approximately 480 ballots cast, 301 absentee ballots were hand delivered with no record of who delivered them, a procedure that invites abuse. The votes on 364 of the ballots were counted in violation of the voters’ right to a secret ballot. This abuse of voter privacy is intolerable anywhere in Colorado, but it’s especially troubling in Center, with its continuing reports of voter intimidation and undue influence,” Marilyn Marks, President of Citizen Center, stated.
Today, it takes the signatures of 5 percent of the voters in a city election to force the mayor or a city representative into a recall election. A May election might draw 40,000 voters, but more than 170,000 El Pasoans voted in the last presidential election.
“That quadruples the number of signatures required for a recall election,” Haddad said.
The recall issue in Ronda first came up this fall when a petition signed by over 76 residents recalling Ronda Mayor Victor Varela was presented to the town. The petition was started by Kevin Reece who was not selected to an empty seat on the board. An official with the state said the town did not have recall capability.
Information from the N.C. School of Government provided a list of the following towns with recall capability. They are Aberdeen, Asheville, Cajah’s Mountain, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, Foxfire, Greensboro, Hickory, Lewisville, Lumberton, Oak Island, Pinebluff, Pleasant Garden, Raleigh, Randleman, River Bend, Statesville, Troutman and Winston-Salem. Recall is also permitted for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board. No counties have recall for their commissioners.
In addition, nearly 300 mail-in ballots were hand delivered, but the names of those who brought in the ballots were not recorded. State municipal law requires that the town clerk must make a record of who delivered the ballots and note the date they were received.
There were also reports of a good number of names whose addresses could not be verified as Center residents. Additional anomalies were recorded, some by Cyriacks as she watched judges thumb through mail-in ballots during the recount.
But the problem that bothered Jones was that during the vote count March 19, all of the absentee ballots with their identifying stubs still attached were exposed for hours at the polling place.
The money battle has largely pitted the various regional Bay Area firefighters’ associations against Local 2881, the Sacramento-based Cal Fire union. Nine separate fire unions from across the Bay Area injected a total of $35,500 toward stopping the recall, nearly half of it coming from San Mateo County Firefighters Local 2400.
One candidate looking to supplant the seated directors says his side requested help from Cal Fire’s union to counterbalance the “no on the recall” fundraising. Last week, a political action committee representing Cal Fire employees contributed nearly $10,000 to each of the three challengers it supports.
A circuit court election is nonpartisan, but both candidates emphasized their Republican supporters in the race. Several Republican office holders in the county, including District Attorney Adam Gerol and Sheriff Maury Straub, endorsed Wolfgram.
Voiland's candidacy was backed by several Republican lawmakers representing portions of the county, such as Alberta Darling of River Hills and Jim Ott of Mequon.