Lazar-Fox Recall Group Shy of Signatures, Calls It Quits

A week before the final deadline to submit its petitions, a group formed to recall Mayor Judy Lazar and Councilman Andy Fox announced Thursday it was short of signatures and had decided to call it quits.

Residents to Recall Fox and Lazar--which vowed to recall Lazar and Fox after a rival group decided to recall Councilwoman Elois Zeanah--would not be able to gather the 10,169 signatures needed to place a recall measure on the ballot, group spokeswoman Kitty Radler said.

The group had already failed to gather the signatures in time for the Nov. 4 election. The rival group, Yes! Remove Elois Zeanah, made the deadline and Zeanah will now face recall.

“I don’t have enough [signatures],” Radler said. “It’s unfortunate, but that’s the situation.”

Radler said she and her supporters had gathered more than 8,000 signatures to recall Fox and Lazar but had run out of time and energy. Unlike Yes! Remove Elois Zeanah, which has spent more than $175,000, Residents to Recall Fox and Lazar was a low-budget effort with no paid signature gatherers.

“We did this the right way, but it’s hard to do unless you use paid people, and we were not going to do that,” she said. “We had a lot of support.”

Fox found that hard to believe. He criticized the group for declining to submit the signatures to City Clerk Nancy Dillon and accused it of greatly exaggerating the number of signatures against him, saying he rarely saw the group petitioning around town.

Fox also slammed the group for what he called its failure to cite any reasons he was unfit for office, other than to say he was behind the Zeanah recall, an accusation he has long denied.

“I think the fact that they’re not even going to turn them in says a lot,” Fox said. “I think you have to characterize their whole effort, which was retaliatory to begin with, as a failure.”

Residents to Recall Fox and Lazar argued the two council members had to be ousted to “level the playing field” if Zeanah was successfully recalled, and because, the group said, both were soft on developers.

Lazar could not be reached for comment Thursday.

If a majority of voters choose to recall Zeanah Nov. 4, they will select her replacement from three candidates: engineer David Seagal, student and homemaker Roni Fenzke and Cal Lutheran Vice President Dennis Gillette.