SAN CLEMENTE : Petition Signatures May Be Disqualified

A printing error could disqualify more than 2,000 signatures already collected by a group seeking to recall four council members and overturn a controversial decision to contract for law enforcement services with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Darlene Novak, a member of the recall group, said she discovered after receiving an anonymous tip that the margins on many of the forms being used to collect signatures from registered voters are wrong.

State code requires that recall petitions must leave one inch of margin space at the top of the form and half an inch at the bottom, City Clerk Myrna Erway said.

If the margins are wrong, the signatures on an incorrect form would be disqualified, Erway said.

For now, the recall group, which calls itself Citizens for a Better San Clemente, is assuming most of the margins are incorrect on both the recall and initiative forms and plans to start all over again in collecting the signatures, Novak said.

“It’s a setback, but we will personally contact everyone or make ourselves available to get these signatures,” Novak said. “What we do have in our favor is time.” While the original petition forms submitted to the city clerk had correct margins, a mistake was somehow made in reproducing them, Novak said. Some of the margins are off by only a fraction, she added.

Mayor Truman Benedict and council members Joseph Anderson, Scott Diehl and Candace Haggard were targeted for recall by the group in March, in large part because of their controversial decision in February to disband the city’s 65-year-old Police Department and contract for services with the Sheriff’s Department.

The targeted council members defend their decision, saying it will save the financially strapped city about $2 million in the first year alone and increase street patrols. The city, with a $20-million operating budget, is facing a projected $6.35-million shortfall this coming fiscal year. The changeover in law enforcement is targeted for July 1.

The group started collecting signatures on April 12 to force a recall election. At the same time, the group is also trying to collect enough signatures to get an initiative on the ballot that seeks to overturn the council’s decision to disband the Police Department.

Novak said the group still has several months left to gather signatures. “We are not going to give up,” she said.

The group must collect more than 5,000 signatures from registered voters in San Clemente by August to force a recall election and more than 3,700 signatures by October for the voter initiative.