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Last Tuesday evening, a group of citizens met in a Big Canyon home to talk about instituting a recall on Councilman Scott Peotter. Loud-mouthed as he is, Peotter casts fewer bad votes than almost anyone on council who has been serving for more than 6 months (and therefore has a voting history to look at). So why do they want to recall him? Because they say he is a homophobe.
Is he a homophobe? Eh, yeah, you could probably say that. But his backwards views on gay marriage has absolutely nothing to do with his role as a city council member. He’s not making rulings on gay marriage or equal rights in our city– his role is mostly as a steward of our fiscal policies– like the Balboa Peninsula bus vote happening tonight.
Look: We all have worked with people whose political views we may not share– but as long as those views don’t affect their job (and they are doing a good job), really: who cares?
Well, apparently a group of citizens led by a “Marilyn Brewer” does. She thinks that Peotter’s religion-based view of supporting “traditional marriage” is so horribly offensive that she wants to recall him from office.
A Facebook profile named “Recall Scott Peotter” has surfaced and a domain name called recallscottpeotter.com was just launched in the last few days. The Facebook profile commented on my original article, but then deleted their comment after just a few hours when it did not gain any positive traction– a deleting ones own comments is a pretty strange way to start a campaign. But it gets even stranger. Contrary to the idea that they were “building up support” or “seeking community approval”, the domain name was actually registered back on March 18th of this year, meaning that all the talk about “which person to recall” and when it began was actually already settled and decided upon well before even the “insider talks” began.
Dear “insiders”: Yes, that means you’ve been duped and your input never actually mattered.
But it gets even stranger: the unprepared group originally filed the “Committee To Recall Scott Peotter” with the Secretary of State on Tuesday– before they even had their meeting (yes, insiders, that means your input never mattered). I am told by the Secretary of State that the relatively simple and straightforward form was reviewed and rejected on Wednesday because someone managed to fill it out incorrectly. They re-filed their paperwork and finally got them into an acceptable format to submit to the state and local governments– but with no real money in the bank yet.
So who is really behind this movement? Early indications show that former Councilman Keith Curry has been instrumental in getting this rolling. The rivalry between Peotter and Curry is very well known and very personal. Is this just a personal vendetta and a score to settle? For Curry, probably.
Another person who has been involved is Curry’s teammate on council, Tony Petros. Petros abruptly decided against running for re-election last year, but decided to keep all the money that people gave him to run for re-election anyway. Petros has over $24,000 in the bank that is surely burning a hole in his pocket. He’s a likely financial contributor to the recall efforts. Finally, the last of the early-adopters was Peotter’s rival who lost to him in the council race for District 6 in the 2014 election, Mike Toerge. Torege has publicly proclaimed that the reason he wants to recall Peotter is because Peotter supposedly said that some of Toerge’s friends were whiners and pouters. Seriously, here’s what he said in his own words:
Were Peotters supposed-comments out of line? Yeah, if he said that, then they were.
Were they inaccurate? Well, he is now facing a recall– not for his votes– but because he supposedly called someone a “pouter”. You use your own judgement on that one.
There are plenty of ways to accomplish ones goals. If these people who want to recall Peotter actually wanted to help the community, they would spend that money towards District-based elections rather than the horrendous hybrid of at-large and district-based that we have today which allows Big Money to buy elections out from underneath the citizens (last cycle, Peotter lost his own district but won city-wide, so this would be making a statement while also actually helping the community)
However, it appears blatantly true that these recall efforts are there to settle a personal score with a mouthy politician rather than to actually do good in our community. Dragging our entire city into conflict for personal vendettas is not just a poor display of judgement– it shows how little these people care about our citys reputation to begin with.
You can call me a whiner about it– but I take that personally.
