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Recount Demanded of Petitions on Bernhardt Recall

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

A San Diego environmental activist, represented by one of Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt’s attorneys, demanded a recount Wednesday of the petitions that last week qualified for a recall vote on Bernhardt.

In a letter to City Clerk Charles Abdelnour, Bob Glaser, a political consultant and chairman of San Diegans for Managed Growth, raised a wide variety of questions in challenging Abdelnour’s decision to call the election.

“If the signatures are there, then I’ll go out and campaign and fight it on the streets,” Glaser said. “If not, there’s no reason to waste hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars and someone’s career over an insufficient recall petition.”

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By the narrow margin of 49 votes, the Recall Bernhardt Committee last week qualified the city’s first-ever recall election for the ballot when city election officials announced that the group had submitted 11,289 valid signatures on petitions. Under procedures governing recall campaigns, the City Council has 60 to 90 days from the time it is presented with the recall petition to schedule an election.

Glaser, who indicated that he soon will be joined by a committee of like-minded environmentalists, said Bernhardt is not a part of the legal challenge and will not pay for any expenses. However, Glaser is represented by David Lundin, who served as Bernhardt’s lawyer in last summer’s federal court battle over the City Council’s reapportionment.

On Friday, Bernhardt told reporters that she was “leaning against” demanding a recount or challenging the election in court.

Bernhardt said Wednesday that she is “honored and pleased that citizens would take it upon themselves to challenge this atrocity,” a reference to the recall effort.

Kathy Gaustad, chairwoman of the recall group, said that Glaser “has no legal standing” to demand the recount, but repeated that her group had been expecting some kind of challenge.

“I was hoping this would not happen,” Gaustad said.

In the letter, signed by Lundin, Glaser demanded access to the signatures on the petitions, which Bernhardt is prevented by law from seeing. Glaser said a review of the signatures and the procedures used by the county registrar of voters to validate them, is necessary to determine whether there are enough to call the election.

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Glaser said that he presumes there will be a court battle over the demand for the signatures.

“We believe that the registrar did not strictly comply with applicable law nor did it follow high standards of due care normally followed by other registrars within California,” Lundin wrote.

He also raised the question of whether signatures were gathered in the appropriate council districts. The boundaries of Bernhardt’s 5th Council District changed when the city’s reapportionment took effect Sept. 26, during the time that the recall committee was circulating a second “supplemental” set of petitions.

Because only half of the signatures contained on the supplemental petitions were found valid, “we believe there remains a significant margin for additional error unless the actual procedures and count of the registrar of voters are subject to complete and independent review and recount,” Lundin wrote.

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