Uncommon Recall: This One Actually Made the Ballot : Election: Councilman John O. Robertson’s fate will be put to voters Tuesday. His colleagues, who are tired of his constant dissent, are behind the action.

Political signs are sprouting in Cudahy, a certain harbinger of spring--or summer or winter or fall. In Cudahy, politics is a year-round sport.

The latest political controversy to jostle this small, working-class city of 23,000--a city described in one urban affairs study as “the second-poorest suburb in America”--is Tuesday’s recall election against City Councilman John O. Robertson, 53, an engineer who has been on the council 17 years.

Recall efforts against elected officials are common in Cudahy. Half a dozen official recall petitions have circulated in the city in as many years, said City Manager Jack M. Joseph--adding, with an audible sigh, “Politics in Cudahy: The never-ending story.”

But what makes the Robertson recall effort different is that this time its supporters actually got enough valid signatures on a petition to put the matter to a vote--the first recall election in the city’s history. And what makes it really unusual, even for Cudahy, is that it was Robertson’s four colleagues on the City Council, not a groundswell of angry voters, who sponsored the recall initiative to get him bounced off the council.

The reason: “He votes against everything we want to do,” explained Jack Cluck, 72, a councilman who is serving a rotating term as mayor.

“He keeps needling the council, constantly,” Councilman Alex F. Rodriguez, 66, said of Robertson. “I don’t know what it is about the man.”

Robertson cheerfully admits that he disagrees with the other four council members on just about everything, from the city manager’s salary to trips by council members to Palm Springs for city government seminars. Robertson describes himself as a lone voice of dissent on the council.

But Robertson vigorously denies other allegations made against him, including that he “defrauded” a jobs training program, an allegation that was discounted by a court-appointed arbitrator in a related civil suit. In fact, Robertson filed a defamation suit against the other council members for making the charge in their recall petition, but the lawsuit recently was thrown out of court. Robertson said he plans to appeal.

“The council doesn’t like me,” Robertson said, in what seems a staggering understatement. “They’ve got four votes, so there’s not a thing they can’t pass, and yet they still want to get rid of me. It’s nothing but a political game. And it’s an unbelievable waste of the taxpayers’ money.”

It will cost the city an estimated $12,000 to hold the election Tuesday. Robertson said he will spend about $6,000 of his own funds fighting the recall with mailings, telephone calls and red-and-white signs that say “VOTE NO ON RECALL VOTE NO.” Robertson said he has posted only a few signs so far, because, “If you put signs up too early they have a tendency to disappear.”

Although Robertson said the recall effort was prompted by both personal and political animosities, there also is an element of revenge, real or imagined. Councilman Rodriguez has said that he and his council colleagues never even thought about a recall until Robertson allegedly tried, through a political ally, to get a recall petition started against two other council members, Cluck and Joseph Graffio.

“That was the last straw,” Rodriguez said last fall, shortly after he and other council members began their anti-Robertson recall drive. “We’ve reached the point where the man has got to go.”

Robertson denies that he had anything to do with a recall against Cluck and Graffio.

Although the anti-Cluck, anti-Graffio recall effort withered and died, the anti-Robertson recall petition managed to get on the ballot with 711 valid signatures--only a baker’s dozen more than the minimum required. If a simple majority of the voters who show up at the polls next week vote for the recall, Robertson will be off the council.

A second question on the ballot will ask voters if they want another special election to fill the seat if Robertson is ousted, or if they want the remaining council members to appoint a replacement. By law, Robertson could not run again for the same seat if there is a special election, although he could run again in the future.

Turnout for the election is certain to be low, since only about 3,000 of Cudahy’s 23,000 residents are registered to vote, and the biggest turnout ever for a city election was about 900.

Most Cudahy residents questioned on the street either were not aware of the recall election, did not care, or both. Some did express opinions, however.

Elias Khawam, owner of a Cudahy market, said he is against recalling Robertson, because “the motives behind it aren’t fair.”

“I’m gonna vote no,” said a man sitting outside the Cudahy senior citizens center--a hotbed of politics in Cudahy--who would identify himself only as Alberto, age 66. “He (Robertson) is the only opposition they have. I think it’s healthy to have a guy in there to oppose them on some things.”

But Alberto’s friend David said he is not so sure. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said.

Robertson said he expects the election to be very close. But he added that even if he is thrown off the council, he won’t be thrown out of Cudahy politics.

“I’ll hang in there,” he said. “I wouldn’t hesitate to run for the council again sometime.”