BUT MUNI ATTORNEY THROWS OUT RECALL AGAINST ZALATEL
The applications for recall petitions for two sitting Assembly members have been answered by the municipal attorney and clerk of Anchorage, and the answer is mystifying to the petitioners.
Municipal Attorney Kate Vogel rewrote the application for the petition to recall Assembly Chair Felix Rivera. She removed language relating to misconduct in office and only allowed the petition application to say that Rivera had failed to perform his duties when he violated the mayor’s emergency orders against the number of people allowed inside the Assembly Chambers.
Vogel simply threw out the application for a petition to recall Assembly member Meg Zalatel.
Then the Municipal Clerk went further. She told the sponsors of the application that they may not hire a signature gatherer to collect the signatures needed to put Rivera on a ballot for recall. Instead, the Clerk stated that the petitioners would have to gather the signatures themselves.
Municipal Attorney Vogel’s response to the petitioners was to neuter the language of their complaint against Rivera, deny them the right to recall Zalatel.
“Recall Application 2020-04 only partially satisfies the statutory requirements for legal sufficiency. We recommend that Application 2020-04 be granted in part and denied in part, and a petition prepared only as to the allegation regarding “failure to perform prescribed duties,” Vogel wrote.
The original language of the petition was:
“Assembly chair Felix Rivera committed misconduct in office on August 11, 2020 by violating EO-15, an emergency order intended to protect the health and safety of Anchorage citizens, issued by the Mayor of Anchorage pursuant to AMC 3.80.060(H) by: 1) knowingly participating in an indoor gathering of more than 15 people (a meeting of the Anchorage Assembly) and 2) continuing to participate in an indoor gathering of more than 15 people at a meeting of the Anchorage Assembly after being specifically informed of the violation. Assembly chair Rivera failed to perform prescribed duties as chair of the Assembly by allowing the August 11 meeting he was presiding over to continue in violation of EO- 15 after the violation was brought to his attention by a point of order. Of all citizens in Anchorage the chair of the Anchorage Assembly should have been scrupulous in obeying the gathering limitation established by paragraph 4 of EO-15. His failure to do so needlessly endangered the lives of Anchorage citizens, encouraged the spread of COVID-19 throughout the community, and merits recall from office.”
She further noted that “…assembly meetings during [Emergency Order 15] EO-15 were closed to the public and had far fewer people in attendance than normal. The allegations do not explain why the applicants believe that participating in a too-large gathering and violating the emergency order constitutes ‘misconduct in office.'”
Vogel added, “Even ‘liberally construing’ the statutory language as the Alaska Supreme Court instructs, we do not see that the alleged conduct of merely ‘participating’ in a meeting with a number of persons exceeding what is allowed by law, constitutes ‘misconduct in office’ for the purposes of legal sufficiency of a recall application. We conclude that participating in a public meeting that allegedly violated the gathering restrictions of Emergency Order 15, without more, does not constitute the type of corrupt or abusive behavior that the Legislature encapsulated under ‘misconduct in office.'”
She continued, “For these reasons, we recommend denying as legally insufficient the portion of Application 2020-04 that seeks to recall Chair Rivera for misconduct in office.”
Instead, Vogel rewrote the application for a petition:
“Assembly chair Felix Rivera [COMMITTED MISCONDUCT IN OFFICE] on August 11, 2020 [BY VIOLATING] violated EO-15, an emergency order intended to protect the health and safety of Anchorage citizens, issued by the Mayor of Anchorage pursuant to AMC 3.80.060(H) by: 1) knowingly participating in an indoor gathering of more than 15 people (a meeting of the Anchorage Assembly) and 2) continuing to participate in an indoor gathering of more than 15 people at a meeting of the Anchorage Assembly after being specifically informed of the violation. Assembly chair Rivera failed to perform prescribed duties as chair of the Assembly by allowing the August 11 meeting he was presiding over to continue in violation of EO-15 after the violation was brought to his attention by a point of order. Of all citizens in Anchorage the chair of the Anchorage Assembly should have been scrupulous in obeying the gathering limitation established by paragraph 4 of EO-15. His failure to do so needlessly endangered the lives of Anchorage citizens, encouraged the spread of COVID-19 throughout the community, and merits recall from office.”
The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that petitioners can allege anything, whether or not the grounds seem sufficient. That’s what the court decided on the petition to recall Gov. Mike Dunleavy last year.
In a memo to the lead sponsor of the petition, Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones wrote “Signatures may only be collected by petition sponsors. Current petition sponsors are yourself, Ms. Brophy, and 11 of the 12 people who signed the petition application. Signer Paula Ferguson’s signature could not be verified, so Paula Ferguson is not authorized to be a sponsor and collect signatures. Additional sponsors may be added at any time before the petition is filed by submitting the name of the sponsor to the clerk.”
Sponsor Russell Biggs says because of his work, he cannot gather signatures himself and he and his cosponsors had intended to hire a professional to finish the job.
The petition must have signatures from enough voters to equal 25 percent of the number that voted in the last election for that office. The group is looking for signature gatherers to volunteer.
Biggs has asked the Clerk to clarify the terms she laid out for gathering signatures.
The last election for Rivera was in 2020. Some 11,000 voted in the Assembly election that Rivera recently won, which means the group will need 2,750 good signatures of voters to force a special recall election.
