YORBA LINDA : Mayor Recall Effort to Be Abandoned

An effort to recall Mayor John M. Gullixson came to a halt Wednesday after four of five people who filed the official paperwork for the recall removed their names from the notice.

The principal proponent of the attempt, former Councilman Irwin M. Fried, did not drop his name from the recall notice, but he said he did not plan to proceed with the process.

“I’m going to let it die a natural death,” Fried said. “I don’t want the city to spend the money on an election.”

Fried still has until 5 p.m. today to file a copy of the recall petition. Failure to do so will end the recall process.

Theresa Weissman, Robert McNamara, John Madrick and Jerald L. Lone withdrew their names from the recall notice on Tuesday. Weissman said the four decided to drop the effort after taking a poll of about 20 people who had volunteered to circulate petitions. The majority was concerned about the cost of a special election, which could run as high as $85,000.

“The timing of a recall election being held in December, following a recently announced statewide election in November, is not appropriate and is too costly to the citizens of Yorba Linda,” Weissman told the City Council at Tuesday’s meeting.

To qualify the recall for the November ballot, the group would have had to obtain 6,200 signatures by mid-August, a deadline it did not think it could meet, Weissman said after the meeting.

The recall notice, which was filed earlier this month, sought to remove Gullixson because of his effort to establish a high school in the city. Recall proponents accused the mayor of attempting to establish a high school for personal reasons, misrepresenting the need for the school and usurping the authority of the school board.

Weissman also cited Gullixson’s response to the recall notice as a secondary reason for the decision to withdraw from the recall campaign. Gullixson has claimed that he is simply fulfilling campaign promises to designate undeveloped land for future school sites.