Festival Disqualifies Recall Try

The Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach has disqualified a recall attempt by the organization’s exhibitors on the basis that the petition has too many invalid signatures--including one that officials say is from a dead man.

Robert Donald Matthews, secretary of the festival’s board of directors, sent a letter to the exhibitors’ attorney Wednesday, saying the petition was short 30 signatures. The exhibitors are attempting the recall to stop the board from moving the 68-year institution from Laguna Beach to San Clemente.

Festival administrators validated 242 signatures out of the 325 on the petition; 272 signatures were required. The exhibitors need 10% of the festival’s voting members, who must also be Orange County residents, to initiate the recall election.

In the letter, Matthews said 83 signatures were duplicates, illegible, or from people otherwise ineligible to sign.

Last week, the exhibitors delivered the petition to the festival administration. The same day, they also filed a temporary restraining order against the board in Orange County Superior Court to halt lease negotiations with San Clemente. The court will hear the case April 14.

Exhibitor Bruce Rasner, who helped coordinate the recall, said he will request that the festival identify the signatures it is rejecting.

“We want to check this on our own,” he said. “No one came from the cemetery.”

Rasner said exhibitors are continuing to amass signatures before May 1, the end of a 90-day exclusive lease arrangement with San Clemente.

“We’re doing it even to comply with their questionable efforts so that won’t be a problem,” he said.