RECALL FLOUNDERS

Petitioners Fail To Collect 5,546 Signatures (Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Sept. 15, 2010) PERTH AMBOY

The recall of Mayor Wilda Diaz is over. Public Works Department worker Anthony Bonilla and Police Department worker Miguel Morales failed to obtain the valid signatures of 25 percent of the city’s registered voters, a minimum of 5,546, in 160 days. The deadline to do so was last Tuesday, and Morales said they had collected only 2,800 — about half the number of signatures needed. Bonilla and Morales did not bother to turn-over those signatures to City Clerk Elaine Jasko, so there is no way of knowing exactly how-many of them were valid.  “I believe this effort failed because the people of this city realized that it had no merit,” Diaz said in reaction to the drive’s failure to gain traction. “I was confident that the people understood what’s going-on throughout the country and that Perth Amboy is part of this. “I’m doing the best I can under the circumstances, and the people realize that,” she added. In March, Jasko reviewed and approved as to form a Notice of Intent to recall Diaz, the city’s first female Chief Executive, and hand-delivered a copy to the Mayor to begin the process of setting-into-motion a special election to determine whether Diaz would complete the remainder of the four-year term-of-office she was elected to in May 2008. Diaz had until Friday, March 26, to file a response of 200 words or less to the Notice, which she did. The two city employees who headed the recall drive began collecting signatures on March 31 for a recall election under a little-known change to the original statute which previously-mandated a minimum of two years in-office for an elected official to be subjected to recall. The new language in NJSA 19:27A-4 permits recall elections “after the officeholder shall have served one year of the term of office from which the person is sought to be recalled,” provided that a recall election is not “held after the date occurring six months prior to the general election or regular election for that office, as appropriate, in the final year of the official’s term.” Under the current law in-effect, which was applicable to this recall effort because of the date the Notice was filed, the six-month restriction would give petition-gatherers until November 2011 to complete their efforts, rather than March 2012 once the change is enacted into law. In the meantime, they had to obtain the valid signatures of 25 percent of the city’s registered voters, a minimum of 5,546, in 160 days, and Diaz would then have the option of deciding to resign. Jasko’s approval of the Notice set-in-motion the possibility of the city’s third mayoral recall initiated over the past two decades. In 1990, a recall election was held after Mayor George Otlowski Sr. resigned from office, following a recall drive led by his successor, former Mayor Joseph Vas.
Ironically, in 1996, a recall effort was led by the elder Otlowski’s son, George Otlowski Jr., against Vas before his own unsuccessful mayoral election campaign. Morales, who has said that he supported Diaz in her 2008 election campaign against Vas, maintained that the Mayor “has relinquished too-much of her authority to the Business Administrator, who’s really running the town.” Other issues he cited were her alleged failures to stabilize municipal taxes and encourage redevelopment in the city. At the Council’s last meeting before the petition drive began, resident Richard Piatkowski pointed out that “exactly one year ago today (March 10), former Mayor Vas was indicted,” and “most of the people who are part of this recall effort swore that the former Mayor did nothing wrong, and still swear that he did nothing wrong.” The same day that he and Bonilla turned-in the Notice, Morales was temporarily transferred from his regular assignment of creating traffic signs in the Police Department’s Traffic Maintenance Division to picking garbage in the Public Works Department’s Sanitation Division. Over his eight years of city employment, Morales has worked in various positions. “I’m not saying that it’s vindictive, but it sure looks that way,” he said at the time. Diaz, who easily-defeated Vas, an 18-year incumbent who has since been indicted on state and federal corruption charges, declined to comment. However, Motales’ allegation was denied then by Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum, Acting Police Chief E.J. McDonald and Public Works Director Paul Wnek. “It’s a coincidence,” Feigenbaum said. “There’s no direct correlation. In fact, I didn’t know that he was planning to recall the Mayor before his transfer.” McDonald said that Morales’ position had been planned to be transferred to Public Works “for months.” Wnek said it was his understanding that sign-making materials were on-order and that “instead of having him do nothing,” Morales was transferred to Sanitation. “He’ll be returned to his former duties just as soon as that shipment arrives,” Wnek added.