Petition Drive to Recall 2 Burbank Council Members Fails

The campaign to recall two Burbank City Council members has died after organizers failed to gather enough signatures to put the issue on the November ballot.

“It’s just dead,” Assistant City Clerk Marge Lauerman said Wednesday of the petition to recall Mayor Thomas Flavin and Councilman Michael Hastings. She said organizers did not file the petition with her office by the deadline Tuesday afternoon.

Ted McConkey, who started the recall movement along with two other Burbank residents in February, said 7,239 signatures were collected since March. The petition needed 8,720 signatures--or 20% of Burbank’s 43,600 registered voters--to be placed on the ballot.

McConkey said he and other organizers were dissatisfied with the performance of Flavin and Hastings, particularly their support for development.

Flavin and Hastings could not be reached for comment.

Flavin said earlier that the campaign against him was “an irresponsible action driven by political motives.” Hastings accused those seeking the recall of being “unprincipled dissidents.”

McConkey cited well-financed opposition and lack of media coverage as reasons for the petition’s failure. “Half the people in this town didn’t even know there was a recall,” he said Wednesday.

Although he will not organize another recall petition, McConkey said other groups in Burbank have contacted him about campaigns of their own.

“Even though this recall did not succeed, this is far from the end of it,” he said.

The only successful recall of a member of the City Council was in 1954.