Recall supporters come to Council meeting to serve Notice of Intent To Recall on Councilwoman Pearce

In a release the morning after (Dec. 13), the "Committee Seeking the Recall of Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce" says that although Councilwoman Pearce left the Council Chamber when recall proponents displayed signs urging her recall and proponent Jonathan Crouch used the Council's public comment period to announce the Committee's intention to serve the Notice on Councilwoman Pearce, the City Clerk handed Councilwoman Pearce the Committee's Notice (signed by the legal maximum of thirty Second Council district registered voters) when Pearce returned to her seat.

After the Notice is published in a newspaper of general circulation, Councilwoman Pearce will have an opportunity to file an Answer.

Councilwoman Pearce has made two brief statements online:

• In a comment on Facebook, she stated "It's unfortunate that after police and DA have set the record straight people can still make assumptions and slander you" and "It's unfortunate that there's a double standard in the city, where personal conducts get a 'no comment' from our City Attorney and then I get my persoal life paraded around ever [sic] two months as a political exercise in who can step on shoulders to make their own political headway."

• In her official statement, Councilwoman Pearce says: "I am focused on my responsibilities as a Councilmember, and serving as the responsive and effective advocate that the residents of Long Beach's 2nd District deserve at City Hall. I went through a difficult time in my personal life earlier this year, and some of my political rivals have decided to use that as the basis of a recall campaign. I'm confident that voters in my district will reject the embellished and exaggerated claims that are made in this recall petition."

Recall proponents will have 120 days to collect and submit petition signatures from at least 20% of valid registered 2nd district voter signatures to trigger a recall election. (The City Clerk's office indicates that as of Nov. 1, the 2nd Council district had 31,305 registered voters (4th largest number in LB.) 20% of 31,305 = 6,261 valid signatures. [Recall proponents traditionally submit more than the minimum required to ensure the recall doesn't fall short if/when signatures may be deemed invalid.] If proponents collect and submit sufficient signatures within the time period, a special 2nd district election will be scheduled in which 2nd dist. residents will decide whether to retain or remove Councilwoman Pearce, and if removed who will replace her (from among 2nd dist. residents who file paperwork to put their names on the ballot to replace her.)

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Councilwoman Pearce, a self-described progressive and a member of Mayor Garcia's 2014 "transition team," was narrowly elected in June 2016 with support of organized labor and supporters of a number of generally left-of-center policy priorities. Mayor Garcia swiftly chose Pearce to chair the Council's "Elections Oversight Committee" where she advanced a change in LB law (approved by the Council 5-3 in April 2017 and not vetoed by Mayor Garcia) that now lets the Mayor and Councilmembers use their "officeholder accounts," funded by various contributors, to help elect or defeat candidates for other political offices. Two years earlier, a Council majority voted to triple annual totals that LB electeds could collect in their "officeholder accounts" (a change advanced by Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez, a former Garcia Council office aide elected in mid-2014 and then picked by Garcia to chair the same committee.)

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Earlier in the Dec. 12, 2017 Council meeting, Councilwoman Pearce supported Council passage of a city staff recommended amended agreement that will let the developer of a conceptualized hotel at the SE corner of Ocean/Pine keep 80% of LB's hotel room tax revenue (LB's "transient occupancy tax") for nine years (replacing a May 2016 Council-approved agreement to let the developer retain 50% of the revenue totaling the same sum over 20 years) to facilitate the development (LBREPORT.com coverage of the agendized item here.)

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That was followed by an unusually bitter verbal fight that broke out between Councilwoman Pearce and Councilwoman Price reflecting the lingering aftermath of a politically charged September Council vote (5-4) that derailed an ordinance sought by Pearce (and Gonzalez, Uranga and Richardson) that could have changed work rules and required installation of "panic buttons" at large LB hotels that supporters said would protect hotel room workers from physical assaults and management retaliation. A number of LB hotel owners/hospitality interests strongly opposed the proposed ordinance, with some opponents arguing it amounted to a device to help a union seeking to represent the workers.

A five-vote Council majority (Price, Supernaw, Mungo, Andrews, Austin) instead enacted a Council resolution (motion by Austin, said the issue deserved further study) that recited support for worker protections, encouraged safety plans and supported workers' right to unionize...without the force of ordinance law.

Developing.

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