Residents form committe to recall LDPOA board

June 15, 2009 – © Foothill Express

A steering committee of 12 local citizens chaired by Mitch Mattea plans to present a petition of recall to the LDPOA board at its June 20 regular meeting.

Committee spokesman Ron Hunt said that only 167 signatures must be obtained to meet the requirement of 5 percent of the membership. “We’ll have well over 200,” he said.

The committee, which met once in late May and once in early June, has retained Sonora attorney Michael Macomber to assist during this recall process.

The recall has garnered a large amount of interest in the community, drawing more than 60 members to each of the two committee meetings.

Signatures will be verified by an independent third party, Hunt said, before being submitted to the LDPOA board in order to make sure that only valid signatures are presented.

The recall is governed by the Davis-Sterling Act, and California Incorporation Law, which regulate private associations.

While the exact recall wording hasn’t been drafted yet, Hunt said this action is being taken because of several recent episodes involving the LDPOA board, the association’s newsletter, and the personal Internet web log, or “blog,” of board secretary Lew Richardson.

Basically, the committee and a large number of vocal members of the community believe that the board has used its house organ, The All New Discoverer – and a director has used his blog – to attack association members. “I’m appalled at them singling out individual property owners,” Hunt said.

What earned the greatest ire of the community was a cartoon in the May edition of the Discoverer mocking developer Tom Porter’s donation of a lighted sign valued at $15,000 to Don Pedro High School.

Many felt the cartoon was in poor taste.

So many, in fact, that the May 16 regular meeting of the LDPOA board was met with an overflowing crowd of association members demanding the board apologize for the cartoon.

No apology was forthcoming, and the meeting degraded into what several people in attendance characterized as “a brawl.”

“The board should have said, ‘We made a mistake,’” Hunt said. “But, instead, they tried to defend their actions.”

LDPOA board vice president Bill Kinsella, who approved of the cartoon beforehand along with the rest of the board members, and who was present at the May 16 meeting, said that he doesn’t believe the cartoon was offensive. He pointed out that the cartoon was factually correct and humorous satire.

“First of all, the cartoon was not offensive. I will not apologize,” he said. “My concern is if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?”

Kinsella is frustrated by the recall and denies that it is about the cartoon. “It’s certainly not about the cartoon. What is the hidden agenda there?”

In answering his own question, he believes there is another reason. “Flat out statement: (Orb) Hatton, (Dwight) Mueller, (Harry) Alfier and several others don’t want Lew Richardson and me on the board,” Kinsella said. “They lost, and they can’t handle it.”

Hatton and Mueller are former LDPOA board members with a history of clashing with Kinsella when all three were on the board together several years ago. Alfier is a frequent subject of Lew Richardson’s blog because of a paved road that Alfier put in on an easement on property owned by Richardson’s friend Harry Dean on Alamo Drive.

Once the recall petition is presented to the board, directors have 30 days to set a date for the election.

In thinking about the cost of the recall, Kinsella said it could run from $5,000 to $10,000 depending on how much the election monitor charges. “Why should the whole membership be penalized? It’s blown out of proportion.”

Steering committee member Ron Howenstine said the committee’s goal is to conduct the recall at the time of the regular October board election so that only one election need be held. “Our goal is to keep the cost down,” he said.

Complicating the recall is the fact that one board member, Alice Riess, recently resigned; and two other board members who were appointed last year have their seats up for re-election in October of this year. Riess, appointed to fill a vacancy last year, would have stood for re-election in October.

“I think it (the recall) is foolish,” Kinsella said. “If they want to get on the board they can just run in October.”

But Hunt says, “It’s better to do the recall, to clean out the board.”

Currently, President Ken Kennedy and Director Victor Afanasiev are inactive because of health reasons, but they will still be named in the recall, along with Kinsella and Richardson, according to Hunt.

Remaining directors to be named in the recall include Sally Perez and Chuck Day, both appointed last year to one-year terms.