The organizers pushing the recall of Mayor Ron Littlefield and City Councilmen Jack Benson and Manny Rico say they are confident they will get enough signatures on their petitions to require the recall of the officials by the Aug. 30 deadline. That deadline is fixed to simultaneously allow potential candidates to file petitions to stand for election to the recall-vacated seats on the Nov. 2 ballot. Regardless, both the success and value of the recall effort remains highly questionable.
The first hurdle for advocates is to produce the verifiable signatures and addresses of the number of confirmed registered voters required for each recall. If the city charter is the legal standard for a recall election, the organizers will have to produce verifiable signatures of 50 percent of the number of voters who voted in the last city election in each of the three races. That would require 9,400 confirmed voter signatures to recall the mayor, 881 in Benson's District 4, and 575 in Rico's District 7.
If state law on recall supersedes the city's charter, then recall organizers would have to produce qualified petitions with the confirmed signatures of 15 percent of the number of registered voters in the city and its districts when the officials were elected. Under the state standard, the petitioners would need the confirmed signatures of roughly 15,000 city voters to recall Littlefield, 1,864 to recall Benson, and 1,349 to recall Rico.
The applicable law remains in doubt. That question raises a legal issue that can't be made subject to a lawsuit and adjudicated by a court until a justiciable legal contest materializes. In short, the petitioners have to file presumably qualified petitions by the deadline before an opponent can present the question to a court for a declaratory judgment as to which law applies. By then, of course, it might be too late to meet the state standard if it is found to be the applicable law.
Recall proponents presumably are aware of this pending legal issue. But it isn't their only problem. They also would have to be classified as a recognized entity legally eligible to file a recall petition. It's not clear they meet that requirement.
If they leap those hurdles, they still would have persuade candidates to run for the recalled positions who are more attractive to voters than the recalled officials themselves, each of whom has now promised to run for reelection if recalled.
If the number of confirmed signatures and other anecdotal evidence - i.e., letters to this newspaper, calls and casual conversations -are any guide, Chattanooga voters have become wary about a recall vote and the damage it could do to the city's progress. That suggests voters may reelect the recalled officials if the recall petitions succeed.
Given their name recognition and their residual support, they would stand a good chance of winning again. That's especially so if there are a slew of relatively unknown candidates on a ballot in which the candidate with the most votes - there would be no run-off - would win outright.
There is good reason to avoid or defeat a recall. The city's stability and civic focus on urban revitalization and economic development have produced tremendous gains in recent years. Progress on those goals has accelerated in the last 10 years by an order of magnitude. The city's revival and potential for booming economic growth, ignited by VW, Alstom and a more attractive and interesting downtown, could suffer if recall advocates have their way.
Their petitions and their public complaints center on the mayor's and City Council's divided vote to pass a modest and badly needed tax increase for the first time in eight years, and to impose necessary increases in sewer and storm-water runoff fees.
That's the sort of basic infrastructure financing that progressive, well-paying businesses want and need to see in cities where they decide to locate plants and offices. If minority tea party members and their myopic cohorts can find sufficient support to recall public officials who make such responsible decisions, their mindset against taking care of civic responsibilities will attract much unwanted attention.
Most responsible citizens understand this. Many oppose recall and would rightly support reelection of the current officials to keep the city's progress on track.
More voters would also come to recognize in the period before Nov. 2 that the examples of the Littlefield administration's so-called "mismanagement and corruption" cited by the recall advocates in Chattanooga Organized for Action's Website are mainly grossly inflated or flatly misrepresented.
This page has argued strongly against several actions and policies by Mayor Littlefield, but none rise to the level of recall. An action of that nature should be reserved for blatant mismanagement or legally recognized misfeasance.
The city has much more to lose than to gain by the recalls now sought. The petitions should be allowed to fail, or effectively reversed by voters on Nov. 2.