Community Activist Launches Recall Effort of Mayor of Orange

Just one day before City Council members take a crucial vote on whether to fire the police chief, a community activist formally notified Mayor Joanne Coontz Monday of a recall campaign being launched against her.

“It’s time she knows we’re not playing around any more,” said Carole Walters, a longtime City Hall watchdog who delivered the papers to Coontz. “It’s a shame it had to come to this.”

Walters said the encounter was “polite” and “ladylike” and no hostile words were exchanged.

Coontz later described Walters as a failed mayoral candidate waging a personal vendetta.

“All Carole Walters is doing is wasting $60,000 of taxpayers’ money,” Coontz said. “I was elected to serve the people of Orange. I will continue to do the best job I can and the voters will have the opportunity to judge my abilities in November.”

Under election laws governing recalls, Coontz has seven days in which to respond to the accusations in the recall notice.

The recall campaign then has 160 days to collect the signatures of about 8,000 of the city’s 55,000 registered voters.

If the campaign is successful, a special election, costing the city between $68,000 and $100,000, could be held as early as September, according to the city clerk.

If the recall is combined with the general election in November, it would cost about $16,000.

Walters and other community activists have been protesting at City Hall since last spring, when police began investigating allegations that the city’s trash and recycling companies may have misappropriated millions of dollars in municipal funds. The ongoing case is being handled by the district attorney’s office.

City Manager David L. Rudat charged in October that Police Chief John R. Robertson improperly expanded his department’s investigation in an attempt to learn whether one or more of the city’s top officials was responsible for leaking to The Times a secret affidavit that outlined what the police had learned thus far in their probe.

Rudat put Robertson on paid leave Oct. 15, and the city hired independent attorneys to investigate 14 charges against the police chief. A formal hearing into the charges found that 11 were without merit, and that the chief used “poor judgment”--but didn’t violate any laws--by investigating his own bosses.

The city manager is himself under investigation by the district attorney’s office for alleged conflicts of interest, because he continued to make decisions about the trash investigation after his wife earned a $14,000 commission selling the home of the chief target of the investigation.

The recall petition charges Coontz with attempting to engineer the police chief’s dismissal “based on false charges” and preventing Robertson from investigating City Hall corruption.

The recall petition also states that Coontz erred by failing to put Rudat on administrative leave until the district attorney’s investigation of possible conflicts is resolved.

Walters said that her group intends to serve Councilmen Mike Spurgeon and Mark Murphy with recall papers if they, as expected, vote with Coontz to fire Robertson.

“We served her today because she is mayor,” Walters said. “That doesn’t mean the others are off the hook.”

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Lesley Wright can be reached by calling (714) 966-7700 or by e-mailing lesley.wright@latimes.com