Not enough signatures were collected to trigger a special election to recall Councilman Pat Meyering after a six-month effort to do just that.
The group behind the effort, including four former Sunnyvale mayors, collected 4,530 signatures but needed 8,284–or 15 percent of the registered voters in Sunnyvale–to forward to the county registrar of voters.
The group ran a notice of intention to circulate a recall petition in the March 28 issue of the Sunnyvale Sun on the grounds of “his prolonged and incessant pattern of abusive and dishonest behavior toward members of the public, other council members and city employees,” and allegations that he “violates the city’s code of conduct,” among other reasons.
The group had 160 days to collect the necessary signatures to trigger an election.
“We knocked off the weekend before [the Sept. 17 deadline] because it was very clear we were not going to make it,” said Terry Fowler, one of the group’s organizers. “We had one final meeting where we started wrapping up the loose ends.”
According to the city’s election code, once the petition’s filers have completed the appropriate paperwork, they must then collect signatures from registered voters. The number of signatures required to request a recall election is based on the number of registered voters in the city.
Had the city clerk received the required number of petitions, she would then have requested that the registrar of voters check them for sufficiency.
According to Sunnyvale communications officer Jennifer Garnett, that verification process must occur within 30 business days of receiving the petitions. It would have cost the city approximately $700,000 to hold a special election.
Meyering previously told The Sun he viewed the recall effort as an opportunity to address the issues that the residents are concerned about, ranging from city council campaign funds to building height limits in the city.
“There were no facts to support the recall,” Meyering said of the failed effort. “It was an effort to distract the media. It will have no affect on my running for re-election.”
Fowler said that while there’s nothing legally that prevents the group from starting a new signature gathering campaign, it’s not likely to happen.
“As it stands, he will now only have two years left on his term,” Fowler said of Meyering. “So, I think the consensus among the group is, ‘No, we’re not going to try to do this again,’ even though we think we’ve learned how it should be done.”
Fowler added that the outcome was disappointing, but overall the group was happy with the effort.
“It was an uphill battle all the way, and we knew that; we knew it had a very low probability of success, but we also felt that a statement needed to be made,” Fowler said. “We could not allow for him to just continue to get away with what he was doing. We wanted to make more Sunnyvale residents aware of that.”
The effort–which garnered the support of former mayors Anthony Spitaleri, John Howe, Melinda Hamilton and Pat Vorreiter–developed over several months, following a series of events involving Meyering.
After a lengthy back-and-forth discussion, the council voted 5-1 to censure Meyering in May 2013. The censure served as an official statement of disapproval but did not affect Meyering’s ability to vote on issues.
At the request of Vice Mayor Jim Davis, the council also held two meetings in 2013 to discuss ways to collaborate and improve behavior at public meetings in hopes of addressing ongoing disruptive behavior at city council meetings.
