ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Three on Irvine Council Targeted for Recall Over Role in Investment Losses : Politics: A former Democratic congressional candidate delivers ‘notices of intent’ to officials. He must gather 9,000 signatures of registered voters.

Former Democratic congressional candidate Gary Kingsbury made good on his pledge to launch a recall drive against three Irvine council members Tuesday.

Kingsbury delivered “notices of intent” to Mayor Michael Ward and council members Barry J. Hammond and Paula Werner over the city’s losses in the county investment pool. Kingsbury must now gather the signature of 15%, or roughly 9,000, of Irvine’s 60,000 registered voters to force a recall election.

He has targeted the three council members for their vote last July to borrow $62 million to make an additional investment in the county pool, which collapsed late last year. Council members Greg Smith and Christina L. Shea voted against the plan. The city had $208 million in the investment pool when the county declared bankruptcy Dec. 6.

“City council members that voted for the $62-million gamble are directly accountable for a devastating loss of public funds,” Kingsbury told the council, as another supporter handed recall notices to Ward, Hammond and Werner.

Council members did not directly respond to Kingsbury’s statement.

Kingsbury said he would drop the recall drive if the City Council fired City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. and Finance Director Jeff Niven.

But council members have steadfastly refused to fire any city officials and say an audit report of the city’s role in the county investment pool shows no reason to fire anybody.

“The report is pretty clear,” said Hammond. “There has been fraud on the part of the county.”

Kingsbury also said he would drop the recall drive if the independent audit report shows that city officials are not to blame. The Irvine City Council on Tuesday unanimously agreed to make the report public Friday.

“We’re going to go through it with a fine-toothed comb,” Kingsbury said. “If we agree with the report’s conclusions, we will suspend the recall.”

Hammond and other council members have accused Kingsbury of “political opportunism” and say he is paving the way for a political campaign. “He’s a very ambitious man,” Hammond said.

Kingsbury, a 43-year-old business and education training consultant, was the Democratic nominee for the 47th Congressional District last November in an unsuccessful bid to unseat incumbent Christopher Cox.

After the county declared bankruptcy, Kingsbury formed an activist group he called Irvine Citizens for Public Responsibility and held several meetings to build support for a recall of council members. He recently formed a group called the Irvine Recall Committee, made up of several longtime council critics.

While denying motives of “political opportunism,” Kingsbury said if any council members are removed from office, he would not rule out running for election.

“It’s not at the top of my list, but if nobody else was going to run, I would consider it,” Kingsbury said. “I would not go through all this effort for nothing.”

It remains to be seen how much support Kingsbury can build in a city that prides itself as being one of the county’s premiere planned communities.

In a Times Orange County Poll conducted by Mark Baldassare and Associates from March 12 through 15, roughly one-third of the 600 adults surveyed favored recall, one-third opposed recall and the rest were undecided.