CA: San Mateo Mayor Faces Recall Effort After Barely Two Months On the Job

[RandySF]

Recall-mania is back! San Mateo Mayor Amourence Lee was just elected in December, but already faces a recall effort, one which seems entirely about rehashing the circumstances of her election.

You might remember the bizarre December episode where the City of San Mateo went for a week without a mayor, mainly because the mayor of San Mateo is not directly elected by the voters, but instead by its five-member city council. And when one city councilmember has just left for the state Assembly, and the four remaining councilmembers are the candidates for the job, that leaves all manner of room for political shenanigans. That is exactly what happened, though the end result was the council voting to elect its most senior member Amourence Lee, which is consistent with how city council had handled that matter for the last 128 years.

But barely two months later, there is already an effort to recall the San Mateo mayor, according to the Bay Area News Group. Moreover, according the to the Recall Amourence Lee website, the recall process was initiated “On December 5th, 2022,” which is before she was even elected mayor. (The mayor of San Mateo simultaneously serves on city council.)

The recall’s website’s homepage is pretty threadbare, and lists vague reasons for the recall: “DERELICTION OF DUTY, CONDUCT UNBECOMING of a councilmember, and FAILING to prioritize her constituents.” (Capitalizations theirs.) There is a rehash of vote-trading allegations on the page, saying “Lee made an unsubstantiated claim of ‘back door deals’ impacting a critical choice for a City Council seat.” But in this case, it was Lee alleging the the vote-trading.





https://sfist.com/2023/02/24/san-mateo-mayor-faces-recall-effort-after-barely-two-months-on-the-job/

[RockRaven]

1. The apparent shenanigans she pulled when becoming mayor look fairly bonkers...

I saw the stories in the local papers around the time of the original kerfluffle (but didn't look into it further since it isn't my city and therefore I've got no vote to bring to bear) and it certainly seemed like Lee was a shady weirdo.

What I recall off the top of my head (some of this may be mistaken, and if so maybe my conclusions are wrong) was:
It's a 5 seat council, with the seats staggered between election years, 3, then 2, then 3, then 2, etc.
This time there were 3 newbies, and should have had 2 holdovers.
But one of the incumbent holdovers got elected elsewhere so there was a vacancy, and only 4 filled seats.
The council needs to select a mayor from amongst themselves (requires 3 votes).
And the council fills any council vacancies by voting in a replacement (requires 3 votes).
The rules were silent about which selection must be done first w/ simultaneous vacancies.
Lee, as the only experienced councilperson, was obvious selection as mayor.
Lee insisted the council vote for mayor (i.e. her) before filling empty seat.
Two of the three new council members insisted they fill empty seat first, so everyone in the city was fully represented in the mayoral selection.
There was an impasse. Neither course of action had 3 votes of the 4 available.
The two seat-filling-insistors even promised to vote for Lee as mayor after seat was filled.
Lee didn't trust them or something and didn't relent.
At some point, possibly here, the council adjourned the meeting and met again a while later, and so the city was without a nominal mayor for a while (not actually a very big deal).
Anyway, the council narrowed down the dozen/whatever people who had thrown their hat into the ring to fill the empty council seat to two guys to choose between, X and Y.
X was a guy who had been on various local committees and boards.
Y was a lawyer.
At the next meeting, as they are trying to resolve the impasse, Lee says she was contacted by people claiming to represent Y saying that if she supported him for the council, they would promise she would be mayor.
Everyone is outraged by the accusation -- some for the apparent quid pro quo offer by Y, some for the apparent defamation of accusing Y of being sleazy (including Y).
Lee refuses to say who these people were.
The council eventually chooses X to fill the seat, and then Lee as mayor.

Here's why, just based on the above, Lee seems like the sleazy one: the two people who wanted to fill the empty seat before selecting the mayor AND promised to select Lee if their interpretation of the order of operations was respected... actually did so once their order of operations was followed and along with Lee voting for herself were enough to make her mayor (one or both of the others also vote her mayor anyway). The accusations against Y-adjacent people are bonkers because she already had the votes without him, it was only her insistence on getting what she wanted before anything else happening that ever delayed things.

[wnylib]

2. Sounds like the whole election process

in San Mateo is bonkers. Mayor elected by council instead of by the people and then serves on the council, too.

Looks like they need an election law recall.