Blue Lake City Councilmembers (from left): Mayor Pro-Tem Elise Scafani, Mayor John Sawatzky and Councilmember Kat Napier.



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The folks working to recall three of Blue Lake’s five city councilmembers from office worked right up to Saturday’s deadline in their signature-gathering efforts. Their goal? To get autographs from at least 30 percent of the city’s registered voters — somewhere around 252 signatures — in support of recalling each of those officials: Councilmember Kat Napier, Mayor John Sawatzky and Mayor Pro-Tem Elise Scafani.

Did they succeed? Maybe just barely, but we won’t know for sure until after the petitions are reviewed and the signatures verified as valid by staff at the Humboldt County Elections Office.

Some of the pro-recall organizers brought their collected signatures in to City Hall shortly before noon today, according to recently appointed Interim City Manager Jill Duffy. Elissa Rosado, one of the main organizers of this three-pronged recall effort, then conducted a side-by-side count with Duffy, tallying the number of signatures for each of the three councilmembers.

The final tally: 268 signatures in favor of recalling Napier, 276 for Scafani and 266 for Sawatzky. 

Will that be enough? Tough to say! When it comes to signature gathering, most folks suggest collecting a cushion of at least 15%-20% above the target amount, since some percentage will invariably be found invalid for one reason or another, whether it’s duplication, lapsed voter registration, failure to match the signature on file with the Elections Office or ineligibility due to, say, living outside city limits.

Here, the recall proponents have given themselves a buffer of less than 10 percent for each of the three officials. Maybe that will be enough in a community where most folks know each other personally. 

As a reminder, each recall effort must take place independently from the others, per state law, though they can occur simultaneously. Duffy said she dropped the paperwork off at the county Elections Office this afternoon. Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes must now work to verify the signatures, a process he expects to complete by the end of the week, according to Duffy.

“That will determine whether or not the special election will then proceed,” she said.

Since there is no countywide election this year, Blue Lake would need to conduct a special election on its own. Per state election code, if petitions are successful then Blue Lake’s City Council must call an election within 14 days. That election could then be scheduled between 88 and 125 days after it’s called. (The deadline is longer if it’s possible to sync up with a general election.)

If there are indeed enough signatures to trigger special elections for all three Blue Lake officials, and if those elections are successful in recalling them, it would put Blue Lake in uncharted legal territory, as recently reported by former North Coast Journal News Editor Thadeus Greenson. With only two councilmembers left, there would be no way to form the quorum necessary to make any binding decisions. Nobody’s quite sure how replacements would be chosen.

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