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Drive to recall Morro Bay mayor fails

January 17, 2014
Jamie Irons

Jamie Irons

An organization that attempted to launch a recall election of Morro Bay Mayor Jamie Irons failed to collect the number of signatures needed to do so.

Morro Bay Forward had until 5 p.m. Thursday to collect 1,754 signatures on a petition to recall Irons. The group of Irons opponents came close to obtaining the total needed but fell short, according to a Morro Bay Forward press release.

The organization launched the recall effort after Irons attempted to fire Morro Bay’s city manager and city attorney in September. The employment dispute then spanned several city council meetings, culminating with City Attorney Rob Schultz resigning in November and City Manager Andrea Lueker resigning earlier this month.

Irons never stated a reason for attempting to terminate the top two executives, and their severance packages prohibit Schultz, Lueker and the city from discussing the matter.

Had Morro Bay Forward collected signatures from 1,754 registered voters, which amounts to 25 percent the city’s electorate, a recall election would have occurred, likely in June.

Morro Bay Forward spokesman Bill Pierce said in the press released that recall drive failed due to poor timing.

“The shorter daylight hours at this time of the year and holiday travel made it difficult to find enough registered voters at home,” Pierce said. “We are confident that if we had attempted the recall in the spring we would have been successful.”

 


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If you want to contact the managing editor , Theresa-Marie Wilson t@tolosapress.com; of the Bay News here is the address.


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If you are upset, annoyed, irritated with Neil Farrell’s version of events in Morro Bay with his Bay News articles write to the owner/manager of the newspaper, don’t write LTE as they will never get published or do any good. We need a fresh approach to Morro Bay news in the Bay News.


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Well Morro Bay, you’ve made your bed….now sleep in it, despite the bed bugs.


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I’m finished reading the Bay News, we have a new election period coming up and having unbiased reporting is essential. Impossible with the current editor in Morro Bay.


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Time for a couple of good journalists to get together and start an online alternative that has combines the watchdog aspect of a CCN with the lighter community stuff already found in the Bay Society Page.


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If you want to read a slanted story read the Bay News.

Least we forget who ran for Morro Bay City Mayor,

and came in last place while still doing editorials for the Bay News on the election.


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Nobody is likely to miss or pine for your readership, village.


See you back after Irons and Gibson lose their re-elections bids!


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thanks for calling me a leader, lamecommenter.


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Just think of all the crap we’ve been fed over the years. The only place you can get any information is the Letters Section and that’s because the Bay News isn’t writing those. I’m still waiting to hear why that Planning Commission dude resigned several weeks ago and no one reported why.


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Well don’t look to the Tribune for unbiased reporting they have not only drunk the Irons Koolaid, they have purchased the stock.


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Who knows, except the recall counters, just how many signatures were collected. It is hard to believe anything that group ‘publishes on their awful website, so we will never know how many they really collected. This action has divided our City like no other, but it hasn’t intimidated our Mayor , and majority council people from carrying on with the work of the City. The personal attacks will hurt the recallers and the voters will remember in the election just how vicious those opposed to the Mayor’s actions were. We don’t need people like that running our City. I’m looking forward to the 2014 year and celebrating our 50th birthday pleasantly. There was no need for the recall, except to try to harass the Mayor and Council members, There is so much good work to be done and I sure hope the ugliness stops. The recallers and their mean spirited friends, need to cool it and work on something positive.


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The Work of The People! (isn’t that still the preferred term?)


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The only thing that has divided our city is the USELESS mayor and majority council we now have.


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why be such a sore angry loser

that’s life, get on board the train is comin


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Maybe the recall effort was a good thing. It brought people like Garry Johnson, Kathy Welles, the Solu’s and a host of others out into the spotlight so we could have a REAL good look & listen. I learned a lot.


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MB drama


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Examples of the personal attacks, for those not aware of them, include “hypocrites”,” liars”, “deceivers”, “corrupt”, “sitting on a throne”, “good ole boys”…..Oops!!!! Those are quotes from the anti-recall Facebook page “Stop the MB Recall”. If you live in a glass house….you know the rest.


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are them personal attacks or political attacks? i thought a personal attack was when like saying to someone personally like “you stink” or “you are a worm” or “lady, you look like hell”. Aand i thought a political attack is like when you say someone corrupt or sitting on a throne. And good ‘ol boy sounds like a nice compliment to me. I think we still got the stop the recall stinky-worms beat in personals attacks.


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Since the site claims to be taking “the high road”, does it really matter whether they are personal attacks or political attacks? Sounds like the low road. If you read any of the Morro Bay Forward Recall Facebook page, no name calling, political or personal, was posted, or if it was, it was banned.


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Do you mean Fogcutter News? There’s more name-calling there than at a grade-school recess. Never saw a Morro Bay Forward Recall Facebook page. Have a link?


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The same dog that ate the petition ate the Facebook page.


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your quotes came from your own page


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Oh, and my favorite quote, in case you are wondering why they probably shredded the recall petitions…..”anyone associating themselves with the recall campaign is going to soon regret it!” Barbara-Jo Osborne


In case it gets deleted or someone thinks it has been edited, the entire post is as follows:

“a lie can’t live forever”, Martin Luther King, Jr. The facts about Schultz and Leuker are coming out, like it or not, and anyone associating themselves with the recall campaign is going to soon regret it! You will find yourself smeared by your own actions.


Like · 2 · November 25, 2013 at 10:38pm

https://www.facebook.com/StopTheMorroBayRecall


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Must have missed the “facts” coming out about Lueker and Schultz while I was on vacation. Last I heard, they were STILL dismissed “without cause”.


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There were 1600+ people who signed the petition. In the last election, Jamie Irons got around 2082 votes. Many people didn’t sign the petition because they wanted to wait for the election. Many people who voted for Irons disagree with the way the decisions he has made so far. Wait until they find out what they are going to be paying for their sewer bills. If the anti-recall people think there aren’t another 500 or 600 people in Morro Bay who are going to vote against the person who is responsible for their sewer hikes and the firing of Lueker and Schultz then they are going to wake up after the primary with a big surprise.


Jamie Irons, Noah Smukler and Christine Johnson are the problem. The voters will be the solution. Unfortunately, senior citizens and other people on fixed incomes will be the losers in this process. Instead of trying to save the planet these three should be trying to save whatever jobs are left when they get through with their experiment. They really seem to have no plan except dancing to the tune that their puppet masters are playing. Morro Bay will probably end up being taken over by the County because of lack of funds and 50 years of work will be destroyed by 2 to 4 years of their incompetence. How sad!


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You obviously love the KoolAid. Say hi to Nancy from us real worldists.


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Dream on :)


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;~)))))


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But if the planet gets all cattywampus and whopperjawed, where we gonna put the sewer? and what kind of jobs will there be?


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now produce the signatures, and addresses


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Yes, we need them for our Master Blackballing Plan. It’s almost complete.


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