FULLERTON : Clerk Gets Petitions to Recall 2 on Council

Recall petitions with more than 24,000 signatures seeking the ouster of City Council members Molly McClanahan and Don Bankhead were presented Monday to the city clerk.

The two council members, along with Mayor A.B. (Buck) Catlin, are targeted by residents who are unhappy with the council’s July, 1993, approval of a 2% utility users tax.

According to Deputy City Clerk Audrey Culver, a rough count showed 12,512 signatures on the petitions against McClanahan and 12,541 on the Bankhead petitions.

Proponents need 8,329 signatures from registered voters--15% of all voters--to require the city to set a recall election, which could be held as soon as June 7. It would be the first recall election in city history.

Culver on Monday took the signatures to the county registrar of voters, where they will be checked at a cost of $1.03 per signature.

In addition to the campaigns against the mayor and council members, residents are circulating petitions to remove City Clerk Anne M. York because she had rejected some recall petitions that were longer than the law allows.

W. Snow Hume, secretary of the Fullerton Recalls Committee, said his group is “confident that we will get the required number” of valid signatures. He pointed out that recall campaigns in other cities have seen from 10% to 30% of their signatures invalidated, and his group can afford to have up to a third of its signatures disqualified.

The Fullerton Recalls Committee has until next Monday to present petitions to remove Catlin and York. The committee recently announced that it has more than 11,000 signatures against each of these officials.

McClanahan said Monday that she is upset by the campaign against her but will fight to remain in office. “I guess I feel that this is out of character for Fullerton,” she said. Her term ends in November.

Bankhead, whose term ends in November, 1996, said he also will campaign to stay in office. He said he is confident he made the right decision to vote for the utility tax. Bankhead said he was concerned that the city would have to make drastic cuts in the Police and Fire Department budgets, which were shielded from much of the cutting demanded of other departments.

Recall proponents argued in July that the council should have placed the issue on a special ballot, so city voters could voice their opinion. The vote would only have been advisory, since voters cannot legally impose a tax; only the council can.

Catlin said there was no need for an advisory ballot, adding that he supported the tax after studying the city’s economic situation.

“You’ve got to make tough decisions,” Catlin said recently. “If you have to go to the voters all the time to get their input, then you shouldn’t be in office.”

The tax is expected to raise about $1.6 million this fiscal year. The city general fund budget is about $45 million this year.

Catlin said he had not planned to run for reelection after his term expires in November.