Chico recall still in early stages

CHICO » Mayor Andrew Coolidge and Councilor Sean Morgan have been served recall notices, which is the first step in a lengthy, complex process tied to the ballot.

The notices have been filed with the Chico City Clerk’s Office which gets the ball rolling but is still very much a preliminary step.

“It’s really at the beginning of the process,” said City Clerk Debbie Presson. “All I can say at this point is that I will be reviewing the petition for accuracy and format and all the requirements in regards to the election code.”

The petitioner in both recall efforts is a relatively new political group known as Chico Voters who served Coolidge during the last city council meeting and Morgan two days later.

Chico Voters gathered 20 signatures to legitimize the notice which were then filed with the city clerk’s office. The office still needs to verify the signatures to move on to the next step in the process.

From here, there is a long series of deadlines for filing paperwork from Chico Voters meaning the timeline will depend almost entirely on when the documents are filed and how long it takes for both the city and council to verify them.

The organization behind the recall has stated previously that it plans to have all the documents filed in time to add the recall vote to the June 2022 ballot in an effort to save money for the city and county.

Presson said that could be difficult to do. “There are a lot of hurdles to cross over to make that deadline,” Presson said. “We are tied to election code. Every step of the way we need to verify it with what the code says.”

On the county’s side of the recall and conducting it should it come to a district vote, Elections Official Candace Grubbs said there will be a cost. Coolidge expressed concern that the recall election could cost the city $300,000 while repre

sentatives with Chico Voters have stated it would be minimal to no cost.

“It will cost, it’s not going to cost zero dollars, there’s no way,” Grubbs said adding that Coolidge’s estimate was likely too high.

Grubbs said much of the cost comes down to the staff time it will take to verify all the signatures once they are gathered. The petitioner will need 25 percent of each district’s registered voters to sign in order for the recall to get on the ballot.

Once it is approved for the ballot, a special series of ballots will need to be made specifically for the districts in question, in this case, Districts 1 and 5.

Like Presson, Grubbs said the process is still early although it could prove challenging to have the signatures done by the deadline to meet the June Election. Grubbs added that it’s also too early to estimate or determine exactly what the cost will be.

“There will definitely be a cost, but we’re in no position to say how much because of all the variables,” Grubbs said.

The Election is held June 7 and the election order must be filed no later than 75 days beforehand by the city, meaning all must be verified by then.

Former Mayor Randall Stone and Former Councilor Karl Ory went through the early stages of the recall process after being served papers in 2019. Presson said that recall and the current one are the only two she’s had to deal with in her 21 years working in Chico.

While the effort against Stone and Ory went forward to petitioning, it failed to get enough signatures to end up on the ballot or a special election.

More information will be reported at a later date once additional steps have been made in the recall process.