Second in a series.
Re: “Dear’s Worst Critic Ain’t Bluffin’”
One reason the attempted recall of Carson City Clerk Jim Dear 90 days away is the Event of the Year, regardless of what happens before or after, is that two people who genuinely despise Mr. Dear are leading the charge.
They don’t politely call Mr. Dear a rival. He is The Enemy.
They despise his alleged public sins – abuse of office, racist tendencies, inability to perform his professional duties, not to mention the man himself.
In most smallish communities, political rivals keep their contrary feelings tucked away from view.
Not so with blogger/chef/multi-tasker Basil Kimbrew – who is black and graduated alongside Mr. Dear with the Class of ’71 at Gardena High School – and Vera Robles DeWitt, community activist, whose history with the first-year clerk only dates back a decade.
Never mind that the 62-year-old Mr. Dear is unbeaten at the ballot box since opening his political career early in the century.
As recently as last March 3, after 11 years as mayor, Mr. Dear was supported by an impressive number of Carson voters when he sought a new office that paid much better, city clerk.
City Council members have chased “hostile, antagonistic” Mr. Dear forth and back across Council Chambers and down the hallways of City Hall — as if they were the parents and he a naughty boy.
Since the Council lacks authority to pitch him down the stairs to the ground floor, they grabbed an appealing, attention-seizing option.
They censured him. With an intention to inflict a lasting sting.
Placing Mr. Dear in de facto handcuffs, the Council told him where and when he could go (no, no, before death), what city clerk duties he may and may not perform, whom he must avoid, work he must assign to others. The less they see of him around City Hall, the longer they will smile.
Mrs. Robles DeWitt and Mr. Kimbrew are vocally confident they will succeed with the Feb. 23 recall election where they failed in September 2008 to topple Mr. Dear.
How they will achieve their goal, for now at least, remains a foggy proposition.
The people who arguably count most – voters — have an ongoing love affair with Mr. Dear. If there is a groundswell of anti-Dear sentiment, it must be wearing a disguise.
Except for City Hall and enclaves of activists, Dear hunting season does not appear to have started.
(To be continued)
