WESTMINSTER : 4 Say They’ll Fight Recall as a Team

The four City Council members facing a recall election on June 7 have decided to fight the recall effort as a team.

“We have to present a united front,” Councilwoman Charmayne S. Bohman said Friday. “This recall is against an action by the council, not against us as individuals.”

The firefighters union is leading the effort to recall Bohman, Mayor Charles V. Smith and Councilmen Craig Schweisinger and Tony Lam over last year’s cuts in the Fire Department budget that included layoffs of department employees.

The firefighters contend that by approving the cuts, the council members placed public safety in jeopardy and that they therefore should be removed from office.

“We did what we did because it was fiscally responsible,” Bohman said. “Either we increase taxes or make the cuts (to balance the city budget). We made the cuts. It’s that simple.”

This week, the county Registrar of Voters certified that recall proponents had gathered more than the required 6,938 valid signatures for each petition to qualify for the ballot. On Wednesday, the council set the recall election for June 7, to coincide with the state primaries.

“It’s the citizens’ ballgame,” Schweisinger said this week. Voters “have to decide who is telling the truth--the firefighters union or the City Council.”

Paul Gilbrook, president of the firefighters union, said this week that firefighters from around the country have sent in more than $100,000 in contributions to help in the recall effort. He said he is confident that the four council members will be ousted.

“The election is the easy part,” Gilbrook said. “The hardest part was to ask the voters to sign” the recall petitions.