By Allen Payton

At Tuesday night’s Antioch City Council meeting, Mayor Wade Harper was served with recall papers by a group of Antioch residents, for the second time in months.

“You are being recalled,” said Antioch resident Laura Stewart, one of the recall proponents, who presented the Notice of Intention to Circulate Recall Papers during public comments.

The last time they served Harper, the proponents missed by one day a required deadline for publishing the Notice in a local newspaper. So, they had to start over.

The mayor has seven days from when the forms are officially submitted to the City Clerk, to provide his official response. The proponents will then have 180 days to gather the signatures of approximately 8,900 registered Antioch voters to place the recall on the ballot.

Following is the statement by the proponents of the recall on the Notice of Intention as to why they’re recalling Harper:

“Mayor Harper tells us that crime is decreasing. The citizens of Antioch know this is not the case. The bullet casings are piling up along with the excuses. Antioch is now the fifth most dangerous city in the Bay Area. Nationally, we are rated 6 on the crime index of violent crimes. At 17, the city of Compton is safer.

Mayor Harper promised Measure C would immediately hire 22 police officers. He also promised to be tough on crime and have zero tolerance for criminal behavior. This has proven to be untrue. Meanwhile, our crime rate has increased 22.8% during his terms in Antioch. Mayor Harper stated we needed to clean up Antioch, but was absent for the annual Sycamore cleanup. The police are understaffed. Instead of hiring 40 additional cops, Mayor Harper wasted $4.4 million on police overtime. Businesses are closing early due to unruly mobs of teenagers. Promises of more jobs and economic growth have not materialized.

Antioch has big city problems that need big city solutions. Mayor Harper has failed to deliver solutions to these problems. The citizens of Antioch are fed up and need a mayor that will deliver results to solving our serious crime problem.”

Below are copies of the recall papers served on the mayor, including the list of all 30 residents who signed them, as provided by Rich Buongiorno, the leading recall proponent.

the attachments to this post:

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2015 at 2:10 am and is filed under News, Politics & Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.