Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
Last night at the city council meeting, Harbor Commissioner Paul Blank was flanked by two people as they announced their intentions to recall Councilman Scott Peotter. One was Balboa Peninsula resident Lori Morris, who has routinely attacked the historic bars and restaurants in the area, and also was offended about Peotter’s long fight to keep the same number of fire rings available to citizens.
If Morris has her way, Peotter will presumably be replaced by someone who will once again wage war against our fire rings and our historic establishments– battles long since won, but that are apparently back on the table now with a Peotter recall. This is a move backwards for Newport Beach.
Big Canyon resident Lynn Swain also stood by the Harbor Commissioner, who is presumably the one who was hosting and heading the Peotter recall. I have not spoken directly to Swain in any detail, so I am unsure of her motives, but there were longtime rumors that she was the one pushing to bring the Museum House to a public vote (Peotter attempted to bring it to a public vote, as requested).
The list of residents who signed the recall effort– initially attempted at 45 signers– only wound up getting 30 signatures; a real show of lack of support for such an uphill battle to begin with.
The petition signers are as follows:
Malcolm C Geffer
Greg M Collins
Mike Toerge
Dean R. Laws
Denny Lynn Engelke
George Engelke
Suzanne Harris
Lloyd E Rasner
Linda Rasner
Carolyn J Williams
Kathleen Blank
Greg Wohl
Richard Williams
Paul Blank
Marc Vanefsky
Eric Stambirdge
Cynthia Succa
Richard Succa
Liz Loubach
Robert Loubach
Mary Roosevelt
Kelly Knight
Sharon Wohl
Elizabeth Stahr
John Stahr
Kim Mezgoihmil (sp??)
Christine Laws
Nancy Thompson
Lindsay Ensign
Kyle Olsen
So what happens next?
The petitioners need to come up with about 12,000 more signatures to meet the threshold required for a recall. Those signatures are sent to the city clerk who in-turn sends them to the County Registrar of Voters for certification. Assuming those are certified, then there would be an official “call for election” done by council. The nomination process for new candidates would begin somewhere within the window minimums and maximums of 88 to 125 days. An election then takes place, and whoever wins the election will remain (or become) the councilperson for that district.
But that’s not where it ends. Bob Rush, a resident not unaccustomed to throwing big money into politics, has decided to launch a “Save Free Speech in Newport” campaign (no relation to Save Newport) to stop the recall process. He will have 160 days from yesterday to do so, meaning the hard-stop on both campaigns will be September 19, 2017.
Yes, for those of you doing the math on that, if they return the signatures on the last possible day, that would mean that the election would occur less than one year prior to the scheduled election, and the special ballot process would cost our cash-strapped city over a quarter-million dollars to print and distribute. That’s not very fiscally conservative– but then again, it’s not Scott Peotter who is heading leading this charge.
