Vote no on recall

When Baker City voters elected Dennis Dorrah and Beverly Calder to the City Council in November 2006, they entrusted with the pair the responsibility for making decisions.

Difficult decisions.

Controversial decisions.

In those cases it’s reasonable, in fact admirable, for disgruntled citizens to explain their dissatisfaction to Dorrah and Calder.

What’s neither reasonable nor admirable is to try to kick them out of office, barely a year before their four-year terms end, because they made one of those tough choices.

We urge voters to check the “no” box for both Calder and Dorrah on the recall election ballot that will arrive in their mail around Oct. 10. Ballots must be returned to the County Courthouse by 8 p.m. on Oct. 27.

Put simply, neither Dorrah nor Calder has done anything to warrant being removed from office.

The recall, of course, came about because of a single decision: Both Calder and Dorrah voted to fire City Manager Steve Brocato on June 9.

The City Charter gives the City Council the sole, and explicit, authority to fire the city manager, at any time and for any reason.

This is a vital provision in the charter. It ensures that the ultimate power rests with the people’s elected representatives rather than with a single, appointed manager.

But more to the point, the voters who elected Dorrah and Calder gave them the authority, regarding the city manager, that’s detailed in the city charter.

The voters should, in fact, demand that councilors fire the city manager if councilors believe that the manager, who is in effect the CEO of city government and as such oversees the spending of several million dollars each year, is not performing satisfactorily.

Dorrah and Calder, along with Councilors Aletha Bonebrake and Clair Button, concluded that Brocato was not.

We disagreed with the timing of their decision. We argued that the four dissatisfied councilors should have given Brocato an ultimatum and made it clear that he would lose his job if he didn’t fix the problems councilors identified.

The city charter does not require councilors to give the manager such an ultimatum.

As for the firing itself, despite the absence in the charter of any requirement that the Council explain why it fires a manager, city residents deserve an explanation.

And the councilors who voted to fire Brocato gave one.

They believed, for instance, that Brocato rudely treated both councilors and the public. They also concluded that he was not willing to work cooperatively with certain councilors.

These are significant failings. And in the context of a city manager’s job, they are lapses which, if not corrected, are justifiable causes for termination.

Ultimately, despite our objections about the timing of Brocato’s firing, and despite the complaints from recall proponents that the decision was the wrong one, we don’t believe Calder’s and Dorrah’s votes to fire Brocato even come close to the threshold of malfeasance for which recalls should be limited.

Oregon election law, unfortunately, places no such limitations on recalls.

Just as the Baker City charter allows a majority of the City Council to fire the city manager at any time, Oregon law allows citizens to file a recall petition against a councilor for any reason.

(The exception is for councilors who have been in office for less than six months. Both Bonebrake and Button were still within that six-month exemption from recall in mid-June, when Jamey Hardy filed petitions against Dorrah and Calder.)

We understand the attraction of a recall.

It’s direct democracy — voters addressing their grievances against elected officials.

Yet by voting “yes” on this recall, voters will actually weaken their electoral muscles even while they’re flexing them.

Here’s why:

If voters recall either Dorrah or Calder, or both, then the choice of who replaces them belongs solely to the remaining councilors.

In that case residents, including those who vote to recall Dorrah and Calder, will not have a say in who fills the two vacant seats.

And even without a recall, it’s not as if voters will have to wait for years to express their disdain for Calder and Dorrah.

Both councilors’ terms expire Dec. 31, 2010. Their seats will be available to any eligible candidate who wants to run in the November 2010 election.

By rejecting the recall, voters will retain the power not only to remove Calder and Dorrah, should either decide to run for re-election next fall, but also to choose their successors.

We’re also worried about how a successful recall of Dorrah and Calder would influence not only future councilors, but also residents who might consider running for the office.

It’s logical to expect that the removal of Dorrah and Calder would convince qualified candidates that the job, which takes a lot of time for the meagerest of pay ($150 per year), simply isn’t worth the potential hassle.

As for councilors who are elected, we think it’s possible that, because of what’s happened to Dorrah and Calder, they’ll be less aggressive in dealing with managers whose work falls short of councilors’, and citizens’, expectations.

This could be the most destructive effect of this unnecessary recall campaign.

We don’t want city councilors who, for fear of seeing their names printed on recall signs and ballots, are too timid to confront a recalcitrant manager. We’re confident voters don’t want that either. And we’re confident they’ll keep Calder and Dorrah in office.