CUDAHY : City’s First Recall Vote Is Tuesday

The latest political controversy to jostle this working-class city of 23,000 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.

But what makes the Robertson recall effort different is that this time its supporters actually received 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.

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

Robertson cheerfully acknowledges 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.

“The council doesn’t like me,” Robertson said. “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.”