City Council Preview - Sept 19 (Part 1)

The main item for discussion this week will be the recall of City Councilman Andrew Hamilton.

Recalls are the way that people express their dissatisfaction with their elected officials. California averages 5 to 10 recall attempts per year, most of which fail to gain the required signatures from 20% of registered voters. Once or twice per year recall attempts gain the required number of signatures, and most of the time the recalled members are removed from office.

More than 9,100 verified signatures asked for Hamilton to be recalled, and only 886 asked for him to stay. The 9,155 signatures were 4% above the 20% requirement, so Hamilton is officially being recalled and now must face a special election in which voters will be asked to retain or remove him, and simultaneously select the person to replace him.

Getting more than 20% of registered voters to agree that Hamilton should be ousted is an incredible feat when you realize that only about 30% of registered voters even vote for city council.

The Council must decide how soon to conduct the election. IMO sooner is better. Hamilton has lost the trust and confidence of the people. One of the major reasons he was recalled was his poor voting record, covered extensively elsewhere. Hamilton represents special interests and not the interests of the people. You saw this in his anti-recall campaign, funded almost exclusively by special interests, and despite spending nearly $100,000 they were capable of getting only 886 verified signatures from Lake Forest voters. We need someone on the Council who represents the people of the City, not the special interests.

In 2014 when he was elected, he received only 6,068 votes, and almost all of these votes came from people who didn’t know him. Three years after seeing how he behaves and votes, substantially more people now want him gone and substantially fewer want him to stay.

According to the City Clerk the Council can set an election as early as December 16 and as late as February 5. I think it would be a nice Christmas present to the City to have this over as soon as possible rather than dragging it out.

Tomorrow we’ll look at some of the other topics.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be on Dec 2 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.