Petition
seeks recall
of 3 city commissioners
Secrecy keeps
petitioners anonymous
May 18, 2001
By
Fred Mramor
of the Desert Journal
Petitions to
recall Truth or Consequences City Commissioners Everett Banister, Nadyne Gardner
and Jimmy Rainey were filed with the city clerk’s office last Friday, City
Clerk Kathleen Terrazas said this week.
Terrazas said she
doesn’t know the young woman who brought the petitions and that she didn’t
feel it was her place to ask her name.
Terrazas said she
certified the petitions as to form in accordance with recall procedures. The
city clerk said on Wednesday that no petitions with voter signatures have yet
been turned in to her office.
The petitions
state only that undersigned electors submit the question of recalling the three
city commissioners in accordance with state law but do not say why the
commissioners should be removed from office.
Speculation among
a few people in town is that Banister, Gardner and Rainey have been targeted for
recall because they - unlike City Commissioners Lois Reaver-Black and Cookie
Johnson - have supported and continue to support City Manager Sam Isom.
But Commissioner
Rainey said Wednesday he is certain, from the rumors he’s heard, that the
petitions were initiated by citizens opposed to the placement of a skate park at
Ralph Edwards Park which he, Banister and Gardner have supported.
Rainey said he
thinks the petitions are designed to intimidate the three commissioners into
moving the skate park. “It’s not going to happen,” Rainey said, adding
that the petitions are a form of blackmail.
Lee Foerstner,
who lives and operates his Riverbend Hot Springs near the skate park at Ralph
Edwards Park has been the most vocal T or C resident to oppose the skate park
site. As Foerstner was out town this week, his wife, Sylvia, said neither she
nor her husband initiated the recall petitions and that she doesn’t know who
did. She said that as far as she knows the petitions have nothing to do with the
skate park.
Mayor Banister
said this week he too thinks the recall petitions were initiated because of his
and the other two commissioners’ support for the skate park location.
Banister added
that people have a right to replace their commissioners if they’re unhappy
with the ones they have but that, “they won’t be happy with anyone they
get.”
The mayor said a
recall, like the one that drove Commissioners Freddie Torres, Ron Sullivan and
Joe Fandey out of office a few years ago, would be divisive and make Truth or
Consequences a laughing stock around the state.
Banister said
that being removed from office wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened
to him but that if push comes to shove he will fight to keep his commission
seat.
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