Recall of Grover Beach City Council member headed to the ballot

July 17, 2024

By KAREN VELIE

Grover Beach voters will decide in November whether or not to recall Councilman Daniel Rushing.

Former mayor Debbie Peterson announced Wednesday that City Clerk Wendi Sims certified the petition to recall Rushing. Late last month, a group of citizens submitted the petition with 661 of the 709 signatures they collected.

In May, San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen found that Sims violated the law in her rejection of recall petitions for Mayor Karen Bright and councilmen Rushing and Zach Zimmerman. Sims refused to approve the recall petitions unless certain statements she found false or misleading were removed from the petitions.

Judge Craig van Rooyen agreed and ordered Sims to approve the petition to recall Rushing. Even though the suit noted issues with each recall petition, because both Bright and Zimmerman are up for election in November, the suit focused on Rushing’s recall petition.

Bright, Rushing and Zimmerman’s support of a resolution to more than double water rates in order to help pay for Central Coast Blue, a proposed recycled water project, prompted the recall effort. Following an initiative effort, the Grover Beach City Council in April agreed to quit the water recycling project and stop funding Central Coast Blue.

Proponents of the recall argue Bright, Rushing and Zimmerman are out of touch with their constituents, don’t listen and are making the community unaffordable.