Town’s Council Recalled

Voters in the small resort town of Desert Hot Springs took out their anger over a 3% utility tax in wholesale fashion this week, recalling the entire five-member City Council.

“It’s a thankless job,” said Councilwoman Nancy Sappington, who had served on the council for only a year. “I’m taking it real hard.”

The community of 14,000 will not be without a City Council, however. Three of the booted politicians--Mayor Mike Segrist and Councilmen Phil Kerr and Dan Been--will be allowed to serve out their regular terms until November. Both Segrist and Been were going to retire from public office anyway, and Kerr already is on the November ballot to run for mayor.

The other two evicted members will hold their seats until a special election in January to select their successors.

The recall was sparked when the City Council last year proposed a 5% utility tax to help with the city’s meager $3-million annual budget. Faced with recall petitions signed by about 1,500 voters, the council whittled the tax down to 3% and agreed to end it in five years.

Still, the recall movement moved forward, and on Tuesday, with a 23% voter turnout, about 60% of the ballots called for the ouster of the entire council--though the number of votes to dump the council was only about half the number of people who signed the recall petition in the first place.

The rejection left Sappington shaking her head.

“This tax would have generated more than $650,000 for public safety and to improve senior services,” she said. “People demand more services, but then they’re unwilling to pay for it. It’s a real dichotomy.”

Councilwoman Faye Wiesmann, who had two years remaining on her term, was nonplussed--being already on the November ballot for mayor, along with Kerr.

“People told me they were going to vote for my recall as a way to warn the City Council, but that they’re going to vote for me for mayor,” she said.

Outgoing Mayor Segrist shrugged off the recall as an unnecessary electoral exercise.

“It was ludicrous for them to recall me because I wasn’t running for reelection,” he said. “But I’m not upset. I understand the politics of the thing. And I’ve wanted to spend more time on my air-conditioning and heating business anyway.”