BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org
PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:Indybay-44153
SEQUENCE:44153
CREATED:20040803T193700Z
DESCRIPTION:Why won’t Elections director put District 10 recall on Nov. 2 ballot?  
 Special election would cost hundreds of thousands and disenfranchise voters 
  This recall is the essence of democracy: citizens determining their own 
 destiny. The thousands who eagerly signed the recall petition – far more 
 than the 3,900 registered voters required – were exercising their right 
 to choose as their district supervisor someone strong and effective enough 
 to solve some of the City’s worst problems, urgent problems, problems of 
 life and death.  But Director of Elections John Arntz says no, an amendment 
 to the City Charter requires a special election in December for the recall. 
 We say that amendment puts the recall on the general election ballot.   The 
 difference hinges on what the voters meant by the word “it” when they 
 approved this Charter amendment in 1996. Arntz admits in a letter we 
 received Thursday that our interpretation is “one possibility”; his is 
 another. A member of the Elections Commission I spoke with says Arntz is 
 dragging his feet.   More than two weeks after we submitted the signatures, 
 on July 19, Arntz admits the Elections Department has not yet checked a 
 single one. State law allows the sufficiency of the signatures to be 
 decided simply by random sampling if a high enough percentage is found to 
 be valid – that is, if the name and address of the petition signer 
 appears on the City’s “master voter file” of registered voters.    
 But in over two weeks, the Elections Department has not found the time even 
 to perform the random sampling. Clearly, the recall is not a high priority. 
  What difference does it make if we vote on the recall in November or 
 December? A difference of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” that a 
 special election would cost, according to Arntz’ letter – hundreds of 
 thousands desperately needed in this budget crisis, especially in District 
 10, to save lives stalked by poverty, prejudice and pollution.  Elections 
 Director John Arntz knows that the recall is the will of the people. The 
 number of people who signed the recall petition he holds is greater than 
 the votes cast for incumbent Sophie Maxwell in either 2000 or 2002. Why is 
 he not doing all he can to support the people of District 10 who want to 
 exercise their democratic rights?  Recall proponents will hold a press 
 conference at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the hallway outside Room 408 of City 
 Hall just prior to the meeting of the Elections Commission and then attend 
 the meeting at 7 p.m. in Room 408. We will ask the commissioners to find a 
 way to put the recall on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.   We will tell 
 them how hard we tried to gather sufficient signatures sooner than the 
 little over two months it took. And we will tell how little cooperation we 
 got from the Elections Department – their 10-day delay in approving the 
 petition at the beginning of the process and their refusal to give us an 
 up-to-date “master voter file” until the last two and a half weeks.  We 
 urge all San Franciscans who believe in democracy – and the press 
 dedicated to keeping them an informed electorate – to join us at the 
 press conference and the Elections Commission meeting Wednesday.   The 
 Civil Grand Jury, in a report last month, traced District 10’s dire 
 problems to 60 years of neglect by City Hall. Will City Hall fail us again? 
        \n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/08/03/44153.php
SUMMARY:PRESS CONFERENCE: District 10 recall proponents
LOCATION:City Hall is located at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, in San Francisco
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/08/03/44153.php
DTSTART:20040804T230000Z
DTEND:20040805T000000Z
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR