Contra Costa County: Recall Petition Rejected; Resubmitted

A recall petition against Contra Costa County Supervisor Karen Mitchoff was returned to the proponents after county elections officials found multiple errors, but has already been resubmitted, county elections officials said today.

The draft petition, submitted to the county elections office on May 12, lists a petition signer who does not live in Mitchoff’s district, incorrectly spells another signer’s name, and uses italics to emphasize a phrase, among eight problems listed in a letter today by county elections officials.

The proponents had already corrected and resubmitted the petition with a new list of signers as of this afternoon, according to Rosa Mena, an elections processing supervisor for Contra Costa County.

The county now has ten days to verify the signers and certify the petition. The recall petition is the result of a controversial vote by Contra Costa County supervisors last fall to give themselves a 33 percent pay increase.

That vote drew an angry response from public employees unions, which had accepted much smaller pay increases in contract talks after being told the county could not afford to pay more.

Supervisors ultimately rescinded the vote and instead gave themselves a 7 percent pay increase in March, after a consortium of public employees unions and taxpayer organizations collected more than 39,000 signatures on a petition calling for a referendum on the pay raise.

The fight left bad blood between Mitchoff and union leaders.

In March, a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriff’s Association alleging that Mitchoff and Supervisor Mary Piepho had made retaliatory threats against the union, jeopardizing the union’s right to free speech.

The lawsuit alleged that Piepho and Mitchoff threatened to take punitive measures against the unions in future contract talks if they did not rescind the referendum petition. Calling the lawsuit a “speculative labor dispute” based on hypothetical harm, U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson dismissed it because the threats were not backed by actions and thus did not infringe on anyone’s right to free speech.

The recall petition specifically mentions the alleged threats against county employees and Mitchoff’s vote in favor of the salary increase. It also alleges she is “padding” her salary by taking more paid positions on committees and agency boards than any other county supervisor.

“Supervisor Karen Mitchoff has violated the public trust, taking every opportunity to benefit financially from her government position,” the petition reads.

In her official response on the petition, Mitchoff said that she had been “disciplined and responsible” with tax dollars, and sought pay cuts for county employees and supervisors to help preserve vital services. “When I ran for Supervisor, I promised that I’d do things differently and that it wouldn’t be ‘business as usual’ in county government,” she said in her response.

“It’s not always been easy and it’s angered special interests.” Once the petition is certified, proponents will have 160 days to gather the 11,448 signatures needed to launch a recall, according to county elections officials.

The election would cost an estimated $500,00 to $600,000.

--Bay City News; Image via Patch Archive

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