Another Oakland recall election appears likely after petition effort.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

OAKLAND - After barely half a year in office, Mayor Nanci Staples and three city councilors are likely to face a recall election Sept. 18.

Critics of Staples and councilors Jana Cunningham, Bette Keehley and Linda West on Monday delivered recall petitions to City Hall.

All four petitions carried more signatures than the 82 needed for Oakland's second recall election in two years.

The news provoked a "here we go again!" reaction among some city residents, one business owner said Monday afternoon, stressing that customer comments reflected resignation, not amusement: "We're just kind of getting used to it."

The owner declined to be identified, saying commenting on local politics in a town of 940 people can be bad for business.

Eleanor Gordon, Oakland's librarian, said she was disappointed at the prospect of another recall.

"It just seems like part of our history or our fate now. I'm not taking sides - I have the same reaction this time as I did before. Recall doesn't seem to solve anything. It just seems to exacerbate the rift in our town."

City Recorder Barb Mock said a group calling itself Committee for a Better City gathered 97 signatures on a recall petition for the mayor.

They collected 96 signatures on a petition to remove Cunningham, and 95 signatures on petitions to remove Keehley and West.

The group's chairman, Ron Jones, is the domestic partner of Jackie McCarty, a former councilor who finished second to Staples in the 2006 mayoral election.

Its recall petitions list 11 charges, mainly relating to the council's treatment of Police Chief Norm Counts.

City Council President Andrea Botwinick, who had publicly supported Counts before his status became a confidential personnel matter, was not targeted for recall.

The Douglas County Elections Department now has 10 days to verify that at least 82 of the signatures on each petition are those of registered Oakland voters.

If that occurs, Mock will contact each of the officials to determine whether they wish to resign or undergo a Sept. 18 recall election. Under Oregon law, all elections are conducted by mail-in ballot.

Staples, an assistant in the Douglas County Veterans Services Office, said Monday that she had "nothing to say" about the recall effort.

But West, an antiques dealer, said recall would be unjustified because "nobody's done anything wrong."

She expressed frustration, saying council members cannot publicly discuss Counts, whom they placed on paid administrative leave July 3 because of an ongoing investigation into undisclosed police matters. An attorney for the city's insurance company is directing the probe. Such personnel matters must be handled in nonpublic executive session unless the employee requests otherwise.

Counts also has served formal notice of his intent to sue the city for $200,000, alleging wrongful termination.

"People are up in arms because they want to know what's going on," West said. "But we are basically under a gag order so there's nothing we can say."

She and Cunningham, a retired nonprofit agency communication director, have urged city residents to reserve judgement on the Counts case until the investigation is completed.

And they asked residents to consider the council's accomplishments in its first seven months. They pointed to work sessions with city department heads; updated city policies and employee job descriptions, and sponsorship of a February spaghetti feed and a Fourth of July barbecue and children's parade. Both were intended to get Oakland residents to overcome political factions and socialize together, West said.

Keehley, a retired court administrator, was not available for comment.

Some city residents were disheartened by the prospect of enduring another divisive recall election. Ironically, the firing of Counts' predecessor, former Police Chief Dale Shaw, was a catalyst for the November 2005 recall of former Mayor Jim Baird and councilors Karen Copeland and Diana Fred. West and Cunningham were among those who worked on that recall campaign.

McCarty and Myra Weber, the two councilors who remained after the removal of Baird, Copeland and Fred, had been on opposite sides of the recall divide. They never could agree to appoint even a single replacement. In what state municipal experts called an unprecedented stalemate, they governed the city for more than a year as a contentious, two-woman quorum.