Requiem for a Recall.....

Monday night at the market, after the deadline for filing the recall petitions had passed, a woman leaned close to ask what I’d heard. Did we make it?

She’s beautiful, one of the many I’ve come to know since we tightened our belts and bootstrapped ourselves to take back democracy in Lindsay.  She spoke at the last council meeting for the first time in her life on how the neglect of our sidewalks has impacted the elderly.  It was impressive.

I couldn’t leave my cash register long enough to deliver the message that for many reasons the petitions were not filed.  “You’ll hear tomorrow,” was all I could say.  Her smile vanished.

It will seem depressing to many people, even people who couldn’t put their names on the line for fear of retribution - and they were many.  City employees felt their jobs were at risk if they did.  “Are you sure it’s confidential?” one man asked who supports the effort, but is doing business with the city.  “It’s supposed to be,” I told him, “but I can’t guarantee it,” so he didn’t. 

Lack of confidentiality was the major reason for not filing.  When proponents learned from the city clerk that she intended to inspect the petitions with the help of two city staff she could or would not name, caution overtook them, cinching the decision.

Information from the county elections office, where one would expect objectivity, was unreliable.  The most recent snafu was a new precinct list sent Jan. 17, supposedly a result of redistricting.  The list included new streets with 273 eligible voters, where the proponents quickly went to get signatures.  On Jan. 31, they learned the list was bad.  Many signatures had to be discounted, a waste of two weeks’ effort.  By Feb. 6 the total was barely the number needed, lacking the 200 extra the county recommended for safety’s sake.  Proponents decided not to put the signers at risk with such a small margin.

Was it a weak effort, as Pam Kimball once described it?  Maybe in her eyes it was.  But in mine it was huge and heroic.  It brought people together who never knew each other before.  It brought public scrutiny to a government with slimy practices and skeletons in the closet.  It brought people to city council meetings.  It was a crash course in democracy that taught one big lesson:  it takes work and courage to have freedom of expression, freedom from fear.

Are we free yet?  Nope.  But we’re closer than a year ago.  And there’s November, with the deadline for new candidates to file sometime this summer.  There’s the press, who have their lenses focused on Lindsay for the first time in two decades.  And there’s the law, another arm of democracy that works slower than politics, but with its own kind of power. 

We believe in this system of checks and balances even when it seems broken because we believe in equal human rights and this is what it takes to make that real. We have to keep the system working by using it.  That’s where the recall effort succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.  See you Tuesday at City Hall.