October 24, 2007

No signatures appear on recall deadline

By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Chronicle

Wasco County Judge Dan Ericksen and Commissioner Sherry Holliday will not be facing a recall election. Petitioners had until 5 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 23 to turn in a minimum of 1,373 signatures to the Wasco County clerk’s office in order to place the recall on the ballot. That number represents 15 percent of Wasco County voters in the most recent gubernatorial election.

Tuesday’s deadline passed without any petitions being filed.

Had enough valid signatures been turned in, it would have meant a special election in December.

A simple majority in favor of recall at that election would have removed Holliday and Ericksen from office. At that point, state law would have required the governor to appoint a successor for county judge. The successor — required to be a Republican like Ericksen — and remaining commissioner Bill Lennox would jointly have chosen a successor to Holliday.

Chief petitioner Mike Tenney, a former member of The Dalles City Council, formally took out the petitions July 25.

On a website (www.wascovoters.com) Tenney explained the reasons for his actions:

“This effort seeks to recall Judge Ericksen and Commissioner Holliday for their unwillingness or inability to serve the voters of Wasco County fairly and equally,” the website says. “It is based on their refusal to allow a public vote on the passage of an ordinance which affects the public, and on the provocative language which they used to justify that refusal.”

The ordinance in question, which protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, among others, was passed unanimously at a July 11 meeting of the county court. That meeting was the third to take public testimony on the subject.

Opponents of the ordinance asked that the matter be referred to Wasco County voters.

The provocative language Tenney cited came from Commissioner Sherry Holliday at that July 11 meeting. The following is a transcript made from a recording of that meeting.

“You know, I heard people say, ’Well, why don’t you send it to the vote of the people, why don’t, you know, um, that would be an easy way out.’ But if you apply that to what I was just talking about, if you had sent segregation, integration and discrimination to a vote in Alabama in the Sixties, I think we would have still been where we were back then.”

Tenney said the remark unflatteringly and inaccurately compared Wasco County voters to Alabama bigots.

On the recall website, Tenney wrote:“As much as the County Court attempts to exalt the “anti-discrimination” ordinance by comparing it to the civil rights struggle of the 1960’s there is really no valid similarity. No fire hoses or vicious dogs are being turned on protesters, and no one is being beaten or murdered. Civil rights activists Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman and Liuzzo died in the attempt to create a political majority through the process of voter registration in the southern states, not in the attempt to pressure local politicians into betraying the principle of democracy. To even hint that one struggle is like the other is a gross misrepresentation and a profound disrespect to those who gave their lives for the advancement of civil rights.“

Tenney said in a July 31 story he included Ericksen in the recall because “The senior officer of the court not only echoed it, but then went into a public area to echo it some more, and on his watch it happened.”

That public area Tenney referred to was an episode of the KODL Coffee Break program on which Ericksen defended the county’s decision. Tenney’s website carried links to audio files of both events.

“I was glad the petition wasn’t turned it,” Ericksen said Wednesday morning. “It tells me there wasn’t support for the whole concept.”

He said the recall petition was “sort of a distraction.” He also said the anti-discrimination ordinance “was never an issue of the court. It was brought to us at a scheduled hearing by a large group of citizens.”

Commissioner Holliday also expressed relief Wednesday.

“I and my family of course are very relieved that this is over,” she said. “It’s been not only distracting but something in the back of our minds as we’ve tried to move through these three months.

“I still believe the ordinance is not about civil unions or some kind of gay agenda, It’s an anti-discrimination ordinance. I looked at it that way through the hearings and I still look at it that way.”

Holliday said she was grateful for the support she has received in the past 90 days.

“I want to thank everybody for their support of Dan and I,” Holliday said. “It took a big effort and a group of people came together and spent a lot of time and money , The letters that appeared in the paper and the support in south county was amazing, I’m so grateful for that.”

Ericksen said he expected all the “Stop recall” signs to disappear and that the court would be able to get on with its business.

Attempts to reach Mike Tenney by phone and e-mail Wednesday morning were unsuccessful.