Campbell recall effort has 5,000 signatures

The recall campaign against San Diego City Council President Jennifer Campbell has gathered more than 5,000 signatures, putting the effort on pace to meet the 14,421 signatures required by early June.

Leaders of the campaign said Tuesday that the 5,000 signatures they’ve collected have been “vetted” to remove duplicates, illegible signatures and otherwise unusable signatures.

When signatures are submitted to the county Registrar of Voters for verification, a significant percentage are typically declared invalid for various reasons. So recall leaders are aiming for substantially more than the required number.

The count doesn’t include several hundred petitions downloaded from the recalljen.com website that recall leaders plan to gather and count Thursday. They estimate that may add a few thousand to the total.

If enough valid signatures are submitted, a recall election would likely take place in late November or early December. That election would include two decisions for District 2 voters: Should Campbell be recalled, and who should replace her if she is recalled.

The Campbell recall could be combined with a statewide recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom, shrinking the city’s costs for the election. The signature effort, which includes volunteers and some paid gatherers, began in late February — three weeks after the campaign filed a notice of intention Feb. 3, and shortly after Campbell filed an official response Feb. 17.

The 14,421 number is based on 15 percent of the 96,140 voters registered in Campbell’s City Council District 2 on the date of the most recent general election, which was Nov. 3.

District 2 includes a sliver of western Clairemont in addition to Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Point Loma and the Midway District around the sports arena.

Leaders of the recall campaign say Campbell, a Democrat who was narrowly elected council president in December, has been losing the trust of constituents by damaging quality of life, breaking promises and holding closed-door meetings with special interests.

Campbell has called the recall campaign reckless, divisive, expensive and a distraction from city efforts to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences.