Aiming to pull off the first successful recall in Portland since 1952, the group trying to recall Mayor Sam Adams filed its paperwork (PDF) today with the city clerk.
The law requires would-be recallers to wait six months after a person takes elected office to start gathering signatures. And chief petitioner Jasun Wurster told a gaggle of TV cameras and reporters this morning that he hopes now to start mobilizing hundreds of signature-gathering volunteers once the city auditor approves the paperwork.
The group hopes to collect 50,000 signatures over the next 90 days — to ensure it has 32,183 valid signatures from registered Portland voters.
Wurster, joined by lawyer Erin Fitzgerald, told reporters outside City Hall that the recall will provide citizens with the “opportunity to reclaim our democracy,” and said Adams had lost his “public trust and political capital.”
“It will be the people — not the lawyers that will clear Sam Adams,” Wurster said, referring to Attorney General John Kroger’s recent report concluding there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute the mayor. ”I feel extremely confident that the citizens of Portland will step up and gather the signatures.”
Asked later what he would do if enough signatures were gathered to put a recall question on the ballot, Adams said he’ll deal with that scenario “when we come to it.”
UPDATE: The city Auditor’s office announced later Tuesday that it has approved the recallers’ signature and cover sheets for circulation.
For more on the recall effort, pick up tomorrow’s WW.
- Wurster Confirms New Recall Group Will Start And Get The Signatures He’s Gathered Jasun Wur
- A Preview of A Mayoral Recall Ad? Mayor Sam
- Watch This Video From The Recall Sam Adams Committee: It May “Save Your Life.” Earnest, t
- Middle-Age and Older Portlanders, The Recall Sam Adams Committee May Be Calling If you
- Breaking: New Mayoral Recall Campaign Will Begin Monday WW has le
Tags: Jasun Wurster, Sam Adams
[...] News and Culture The Blog Formerly Known As WWire « And So It Begins: Paperwork Filed To Try Recalling Mayor Sam Adams [...]
How soon can we start the petition to recall the next mayor? I’m not gonna like him/her but the one after that will be PERFECT. And Portland deserves a perfect mayor to match it’s perfect citizenry.
That’s the problem isn’t it? The current mayor was packaged as perfect.
Chickens, garden seeds, green and sustainable, glib, clever, the right glasses, a queer riding cyclist living in a low key house, stories of cycling to Montana with his Dad on an 11 day road trip in the ’70s before it was even hip (anyone seen pictures?), h.s. drop out siblings, low income family, all the empathy needed, digs the arts (but hires who again as Pdx arts policy advisor?), a well chosen first lady, likes to party, and is smug as an ass. What’s not to like?
The Perfect Mayor……..maybe too perfect.
When I tried to recall Vera Katz,there was an issue of community safety I took to her, it was explained in detail, the minimal things I asked her support on.
That is the day,I first saw Sam, there was a coldness, and arrogance in 20 plus years of dealing with the public in sales, I had ever seen.
Logging equipment was my “gig” for all those years, that is gone, no need to explain that that one.
In those years..I met tough, rough,hard people that were very hard to build relationships with.
The difference…..compared to the mayor, if one of these guys said they would hit you in the nose…you would get hit in the nose…SAM…he may say that, but it would show on the back
I knew in an instant..there was to be no give and take, no respect given, not as a voter/constituent, or as a concerned father.
Sam really is a “SHAM”, because over the years, watching him as I have, there is two faces to him, the one at the microphone at an event, pandering, and the one rushing to his car…looking like he was about to throw up, that he had to breath the same air, if the venue wasn’t just suited or completly set-up.
Now there is a time frame (a short one) for you all to think hard about what you think about your mayor.
Has he made good decisions?
Has he always represented all areas of this city “honestly” and fairly?
Did he consider the money in a budget process, and spend it on projects that covered the basics of goverment?
Has he told the honest truth to us and his staff on all occasions?
Is there a possible issue, that would not allow his total focus on the city.
Has he ventured into things we do not need in times of financial problems..(unfunded mandates)
If the answers to these questions, are your best honest answers to yourself and not from peer pressure or groups, and your happy, don’t sign, if you know the answers you would give, and they don’t meet your honest answers to your self…YOU BETTER FIX THIS ISSUE RIGHT NOW.
You will send a message to those around him, they work for you, at your pleasure ,not theirs.
Sam has made so many errors,personal, professional,all having an impact both short and long term on all who live here.
I’m going to sign the recall, I know what I have learned..all the hard way, amd I’m sick of it.
[...] the questions seemed to be directed at strengthening public perception of the mayor, who races a recall effort that kicked off earlier this [...]