Dateline Carson – Three short weeks from today, for the second time in their lives, Carson voters will be asked to permanently drive the career of Jim Dear, the best known city clerk in Southern California, into a ditch from which he can’t escape.
Between 99 and 101 percent of Americans neither know nor care who their city clerk is – unless marriage binds them to the person.
The same proportion of Carson voters – between 99 and 101 percent – could not identify Mr. Dear’s predecessor in the clerk’s office.
The same knot of community activists who failed in their attempt to oust Mr. Dear from the mayor’s chair in another recall election almost a decade ago has returned to home plate to bat again.
Two recall elections in one career against the same person may be an American record.
Is this a personal vendetta – a logical suspicion since the cast of characters has not changed from the first recall?
Or are there valid grounds?
The answer to both questions is: Maybe,
No question that Mr. Dear carves under the skin of some people – but is that reason to chase a duly elected man out of a nice-paying office ($125,000)?
The latest recall bid was launched weeks (possibly moments) after the long-term mayor was elected to a less muscular but more rewarding position last March.
Mr. Dear comfortably defeated the incumbent.
He has kept getting reelected since almost the turn of the century. But a few don’t, and they are making Mr. Dear pay a mighty expensive (possibly career-killing) price.
