megimoo
08-01-2009, 09:28 PM
Recall efforts are already up more than 100% over all of last year, according to one tally. Voters target local leaders: mayors, school board members, city and county officials, sheriffs.
Reporting from Flint, Mich. -- As the unemployment rate topped 25% and General Motors planned to cut more jobs in this long-struggling auto town, voters decided to focus their anger on one person: Mayor Donald J. Williamson.
More than 17,000 residents signed a petition demanding his recall, citing waste, corruption, mismanagement and sundry other complaints.Williamson resigned 10 days before the vote.
"He made people so mad," said Eric Mays, a retired GM worker who led an earlier effort to recall Williamson that failed. "He had to go."Fueled by the recession, voters nationwide are recalling local leaders, including mayors, school board members, county officials and sheriffs.
Although there is no official tally of recall efforts, the website Ballotpedia:Recall reports at least 52 local campaigns this year -- up from the 24 last year, it said.
At least 13 elected officials this year have resigned, decided not to run for reelection or been recalled, according to the website.
"There was so much anger toward big government and, right or wrong, we at the local level are the direct target of it," said County Commissioner Kevin W. Stufflebean of Coos County, Ore., who successfully beat back a recall attempt this year.
In May, voters in Tuolumne County, Calif., recalled all five board members of the Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District, prompted by the firing of a popular teacher and by claims that it had failed to account for how it had spent $16 million in bond revenue.
In Kimberly, Idaho, voters started a petition drive to recall the mayor and two council members after they backed a 50% increase in utility fees to fund infrastructure projects. The petition drive fell short, and law enforcement officials are investigating whether local officials tampered with the process.
A mayoral recall vote was set for this fall in Toledo, Ohio -- despite Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's announcement July 12 that he wouldn't seek reelection. But this week, the state's highest court said the signatures should be thrown out because the recall petition form left out a key sentence.
The news was a blow to the bipartisan group of business owners who organized the Take Back Toledo campaign, which says the mayor drove away business opportunities for the city, spent money on landscaping and built ornate "welcome" signs -- while laying off scores of city workers and cutting back on public services..
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-recall1-2009aug01,0,1769716,full.story
Reporting from Flint, Mich. -- As the unemployment rate topped 25% and General Motors planned to cut more jobs in this long-struggling auto town, voters decided to focus their anger on one person: Mayor Donald J. Williamson.
More than 17,000 residents signed a petition demanding his recall, citing waste, corruption, mismanagement and sundry other complaints.Williamson resigned 10 days before the vote.
"He made people so mad," said Eric Mays, a retired GM worker who led an earlier effort to recall Williamson that failed. "He had to go."Fueled by the recession, voters nationwide are recalling local leaders, including mayors, school board members, county officials and sheriffs.
Although there is no official tally of recall efforts, the website Ballotpedia:Recall reports at least 52 local campaigns this year -- up from the 24 last year, it said.
At least 13 elected officials this year have resigned, decided not to run for reelection or been recalled, according to the website.
"There was so much anger toward big government and, right or wrong, we at the local level are the direct target of it," said County Commissioner Kevin W. Stufflebean of Coos County, Ore., who successfully beat back a recall attempt this year.
In May, voters in Tuolumne County, Calif., recalled all five board members of the Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District, prompted by the firing of a popular teacher and by claims that it had failed to account for how it had spent $16 million in bond revenue.
In Kimberly, Idaho, voters started a petition drive to recall the mayor and two council members after they backed a 50% increase in utility fees to fund infrastructure projects. The petition drive fell short, and law enforcement officials are investigating whether local officials tampered with the process.
A mayoral recall vote was set for this fall in Toledo, Ohio -- despite Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's announcement July 12 that he wouldn't seek reelection. But this week, the state's highest court said the signatures should be thrown out because the recall petition form left out a key sentence.
The news was a blow to the bipartisan group of business owners who organized the Take Back Toledo campaign, which says the mayor drove away business opportunities for the city, spent money on landscaping and built ornate "welcome" signs -- while laying off scores of city workers and cutting back on public services..
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-recall1-2009aug01,0,1769716,full.story