Bankrupt San Bernardino Officials Play Games With Recall Petitions

SAN BERNARDINO: City clerk declines to accept recall petition

BY IMRAN GHORI, Press Enterprise, 7/11/13

San Bernardino recall organizers are planning to file a legal challenge after the city clerk on Thursday, July 11, declined to accept more than 18,000 signatures on a petition seeking to remove City Attorney Jim Penman from office.

The recall group, San Bernardino Residents for Responsible Government, said its petition against Penman was the first to be completed. The group also has circulated petitions against Mayor Pat Morris and all seven council members, blaming them for landing the city in bankruptcy court.

Recall supporters gathered in a business office a block from City Hall and wheeled a cart carrying four boxes of petitions to the clerk’s office on the second floor shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday.

Scott Beard, a group leader, and Michael McKinney, its spokesman, asked City Clerk Gigi Hanna if she would accept the signatures and she declined.

“I don’t believe these are valid and I will not be able to accept them at this point,” Hanna told them.

She also provided them with a letter explaining her decision.

Hanna said last month that the petitions against Penman and council members Wendy McCammack, Robert Jenkins and Chas Kelley did not meet the requirements of the city charter. She said the group skipped a step in the process that requires publication of the recall targets’ responses in a local newspaper, if they so choose.

Those office-holders had made the request, but the others did not, Hanna said.

Recall organizers say they complied with the requirements outlined by Hanna and contend that she did not notify them of the requests from Penman and the other officials within the seven-day deadline set by the city charter.

McKinney called the rejection of the petition “legal mischief on the part of the clerk” to protect other elected officials. Beard characterized it as “typical San Bernardino politics at is finest.”

They had anticipated that the petition would be rejected and said submitting the signatures was part of the group’s legal strategy.

“We want a test case to give us standing in court,” McKinney said.

Hanna has said that she has relied on legal advice from an attorney hired by the city but welcomed a judge’s decision.

“I believe it will clear up a lot of questions,” she said.

The recall group is hoping to get the matter resolved before Aug. 1 in order to get the recall on the November ballot. An attorney has been retained and will be filing a writ in the next couple weeks, McKinney said.

In the meantime, the group plans to continue to collect signatures for other office-holders and submit the petitions as they are completed, McKinney said.

Group members said last week that they were narrowing their focus to those elected officials whose seats would not already be up for election in November – namely Penman and council members John Valdivia, Rikke Van Johson, Kelley and McCammack.

Penman cited the group’s actions Thursday to bolster his contention that recall organizers are only targeting him and critics of Morris. He called the recall campaign “Measure C recycled in a different package,” referring to an unsuccessful 2010 ballot measure that would have made his office and those of the clerk and treasurer appointed instead of elected positions.

“They are presenting a falsehood when they say they’re recalling everybody,” Penman said.

McKinney said he could not provide numbers yet but that they are close to having enough signatures to complete the other petitions.

“We are not stopping signature-gathering in the other wards,” he said.