A Roadmap to Recall

It’s possible that every member of the Pacific City Council could be vulnerable to recall.

My understanding of the recall process is that the basis for removing public officials from office through the electoral process  is their guilt of misfeasance, malfeasance, or nonfeasance. In other words, they performed poorly (misfeasance), they performed badly (malfeasance), or they didn’t do what they should have done (nonfeasance).

In my opinion, charges of misfeasance can be brought for approving expenditures that occurred due to improper use of a city credit card by Mayor Richard Hildreth. It does not matter that the former mayor paid back the money he borrowed, any more than if a bank robber changed his mind and returned the cash. 

 Nonfeasance can be claimed against the council for tolerating abuses by the public safety division. While it is true that some council members have been re-elected, they have since been informed about alleged abuses (allegations of a forged document and viewing pornography on a city computer during duty hours) and have not taken action to determine the truth of the allegations. 

The city council, being the legislative branch of the government, has oversight over the executive branch. That’s one reason for committees such as the public safety committee and the finance committee to exist. It  is appropriate for the public safety committee to review performance and set standards; and the finance committee must review every expenditure made on behalf of the city and approve them BEFORE they are paid. My belief is that the city honored Mayor Richard Hildreth’s credit card expenditures and by so doing, committed misfeasance.

 If an individual can demonstrate that the council was made aware of egregious abuses and took no action to correct them, or if the council negligently approved improper expenditures, that individual can present the facts to the public and ask the public to sign petitions calling for removal. 

When enough signatures are gathered, a judge reviews the issue to determine whether the claims of misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance describe behavior that qualifies for removal for office.

The judge does not evaluate the truth of the allegations. He only determines whether the allegations, if true, provide sufficient cause for removal.

If approved, the recall proceeds to the ballot, and the voters become the jury. Note that this is not a jury that receives instructions from the judge. This it the jury of public opinion. Once the recall becomes a ballot measure, the voters can kick out the elected officials for the reasons given, or for any reason at all.

In my opinion, it’s not a matter of whether council members can be recalled. There are only two key questions here: First,  whether anyone has the will to take action. Second,  whether the electorate still has a head of steam up, or whether the voters have calmed down since November, when they unmistakably demonstrated that they are miles apart from their elected officials.

If I were to place a bet on this, I would bet that the voters got their rage out of their system and are ready to yawn and move on. But I'm also the guy who thought Cy Sun didn't have the chance in hell of getting elected mayor. 

AFTERTHOUGHT: The summer before I took office on the council, a representative of Canfield, the city’s insurance company, met with candidates and elected officials and said two things I have never forgotten: First, Mayor Howard Erickson had to beg three times for Canfield to represent the city after Mr. Erickson drove their predecessor away. Lose Canfield’s coverage and the city would be in a “world of hurt,” the spokesman said. Between the lines: no insurance, NO CITY!

The second thing Canfield advised was for the city council not to make sound recordings of their meetings and to keep the briefest of minutes, in order to reduce their exposure to lawsuits. The message: The fewer the records you keep, the better. That might be good from a liability standpoint, but it nurtures the type of insolence that aggravated the public and caused the backlash that showed up in the last election.