Councilman Cawdrey Survives Recall Effort With 55% of Vote

Councilman Ron Cawdrey withstood an attempt to unseat him this week, turning back a recall effort by more than 100 votes out of nearly 1,000 cast.

“I am extremely happy that it is over,” Cawdrey said Tuesday night after the results were final. “I ran a positive, upbeat campaign and they did the opposite.”

Recall proponents, who collected the signatures of 1,757 registered voters to qualify the effort for the election, had criticized Cawdrey for supporting proposals to develop the entire Aviation High School campus, widen Flagler Lane and build several commercial developments in the King Harbor area. They said the councilman has been out of step with district residents, who they said are tired of new development in the city.

Cawdrey jumped to an early lead as the returns arrived at City Hall election night, a lead he maintained throughout the evening. He won all but one of six precincts in the district and picked up nine more absentee ballots than did recall supporters.

15% Turnout

According to the final results, the recall effort failed with 543 voters (55.2% of ballots cast) against it and 440 voters (44.8%) for it. Voter turnout was 15%.

Cawdrey, who was appointed to the council in 1982 to fill the unexpired term of Gene King, who resigned, was elected to a full four-year term in March, 1983. At that time, he withstood a challenge by recall proponent Tony Baker, defeating him 629 votes to 539.

“It is almost the exact same margin,” Baker said election night, conceding defeat well before the final results were tabulated. “Money has prevailed once again. If you don’t have the money, you can’t win.”

According to campaign statements filed before the election, Cawdrey raised more than $5,600 in contributions to fight the recall. Proponents of the recall said they raised less than $500, and therefore did not need to file a campaign expenditure statement.

$400 Spent

“If I had $6,000, too, we could have put out 15 times the effort we did,” said Baker, adding that recall proponents spent about $400 on the campaign. “We didn’t have enough literature, and we weren’t able to mail something to everybody’s house.”

Cawdrey, 49, however, attributed his victory to hard work--getting out in the neighborhoods and knocking on doors. He disputed claims by supporters of the recall that they were unable to run a successful campaign because they were outspent by him.

“It became a credibility thing for them,” said Cawdrey, a telephone worker and official with the Communication Workers of America union. “If they could get me out, they would have some credibility. Now they have none.”

Delores Thiessen, who organized the recall petition drive, said the effort would have fared better had the turnout been higher. Fewer than one-third of residents who signed the recall petition apparently voted for it. Thiessen said the City Council, which opposed the recall, intentionally set the election for the week after the Fourth of July in the hopes of limiting voter turnout.

Conspiracy Theory

“People were out of town and it was too hot to breathe,” Thiessen said. “They thought of every angle in trying to defeat this.”

Councilman Archie Snow, who campaigned against the recall, said the failed effort represents the final chapter in a “conspiracy” to take over the City Council. He said city officials who worked against his successful reelection bid in May--Mayor Barbara Doerr, former Councilman Ray Amys, City Treasurer Alice DeLong and City Clerk John Oliver--had hoped the recall would give them a council majority.

But none of the three council candidates aligned with the mayor and her allies won in May--making the takeover impossible, Snow said.

Oliver, who did not endorse the recall effort, called Snow’s conspiracy theory “a bunch of baloney.” Added Thiessen, “Archie is dreaming.”

Proponents of the recall agreed, however, that the failed effort did mark the end of the drive to unseat Cawdrey.

“The battle is over,” Thiessen said. “I am going to rest, and then I am going on vacation.”