LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The day after the county’s sheriff received a no confidence vote from the Board of Supervisors, a group of citizens took the next step in the effort to remove the sheriff from office.
On Wednesday morning, the notice of intent to recall Sheriff Frank Rivero was filed with the Registrar of Voters’ office, according to Chris Rivera, a retired Lake County Sheriff’s sergeant who is the spokesman for the Committee to Recall Rivero and Restore Integrity.
Supervisor Rob Brown dropped off the application at the courthouse. He said he is not a member of the committee, the membership of which has not yet been announced.
Rivero, who took office in January 2011, was served with notice of the group’s intent to circulate the recall petition the previous day, as Lake County News has reported.
Retired Det. Tom Andrews, who Rivero wrongfully terminated and was later reinstated by the Board of Supervisors, handed Rivero the notice.
The recall process is a complex one that must carefully follow rules set out in California Elections Code.
To begin with, the initial notice required 20 signatures of registered voters. The committee reported that 39 people signed the initial document.
The grounds for the recall of Rivero stated in the notice of intention to circulate the petition include conducting himself in an unethical manner, failing to form a citizens’ oversight committee as he had promised to do during the campaign, and alienating “every law enforcement agency in the County as well as the entire Board of Supervisors with your lack of accountability and your failed leadership.”
But the chief reason is that Rivero was determined by the District Attorney’s Office to have lied about his actions during a nonfatal 2008 shooting, with District Attorney Don Anderson placing him on a “Brady” list of officers with credibility issues.
In order to comply with his requirements under the 1963 US Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, Anderson must now disclose Rivero’s credibility concerns to all criminal defendants in cases in which Rivero is a material witness.
It’s believed that Rivero is the first California sheriff to have ever had a Brady determination; the Peace Officers Research Association of California told Lake County News that it is unaware of any previous sheriff in the state ever being placed on a Brady list.
The grounds for recall also states that Rivero attempted to withhold information about his false statements in the shooting investigation in violation of public disclosure laws, with his Brady listing also potentially making Lake County taxpayers liable for costly lawsuits.
Rivero has seven days to respond to the notice served on him Tuesday. The notice also must be published in a newspaper of general circulation, according to the recall guidelines outlined by election codes.
Next is signature gathering by the recall proponents. Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley said her office must approve the format of the signature petitions. State election code gives explicit rules about how the forms must be formatted.
Once the forms are approved, Fridley said signature gathering can begin.
Based on state elections code, Fridley said that within a 120-day period those circulating Rivero’s recall petition must collect approximately 7,026 signatures of registered voters who live in the county and are qualified to vote for the sheriff.
The elections code bases that required signature number on 20 percent of the number of registered voters last reported to the California Secretary of State’s Office.
Fridley’s office’s last report to the state, through Feb. 10, counted 35,132 registered voters in Lake County.
The petitions themselves can only be circulated by registered voters who can vote for the sheriff, the election code states.
Once the signatures are collected, elections officials must confirm the signatures are valid, certify the results and issue a certificate of sufficiency to the Board of Supervisors, according to elections law.
Within 14 days of receiving the certificate of sufficiency, the Board of Supervisors must issue an order stating that an election will be held to determine if Rivero should be recalled. Election code requires that the election be held between 88 and 125 days after the board issues the recall election order. That recall election can be consolidated with any regular or special elections taking place during that time.
Then there is the matter of a candidate to run as an alternative to Rivero. Election code states that any candidates wanting to seek the seat of the public officer facing recall must file nomination papers and declaration of candidacy not less than 75 days prior to the date of the election and not before the day the order of the election is issued.
The ballot will ask if Rivero is be removed from office and then offer voters a choice of at least one other candidate to succeed him.
Last summer, retired Clearlake Police Chief Bob Chalk said he would run for sheriff in 2014, but he and other potential candidates so far have not indicated if they will seek to have their names placed on a recall ballot.
A simple majority vote can remove Rivero from office. The candidate who receives the highest numbers of votes will succeed him.
The process can be difficult, and hasn’t been followed often in Lake County, according to a review of elections records.
Fridley’s staff is researching previous recalls of county officials based on a Lake County News request for information on the frequency of recalls locally.
So far, District 1 Supervisor and Board Chair Robert M. Jones of Clearlake Highlands appears to have been the last county supervisor to be recalled. That occurred in a vote on Nov. 7, 1978, according to election records and media reports from the time.
Five citizens from Lower Lake and Clearlake Highlands began Jones’ recall effort based on complaints that he was unresponsive to his constituents, did not seem concerned about police protection and that he had supported a salary increase for supervisors despite a ballot measure that forbid giving board members raises.
Fridley told Lake County News that there have been other recall attempts on supervisors since then, but they’ve not succeeded. She did not know if a sheriff had ever been recalled in Lake County.
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