Chandler Recall effort floundering, so organizers hire professionals

The effort to Recall Chandler City Councilmen Orlando and Sepulveda had stagnated with the grassroots, with the latest news being that the organizers had collected fewer than a third of the signatures required to get the initiative on the ballot in November.

Some would see that as evidence that there's not a broad groundswell of support for such a divisive political initiative. Not the recall organizers! They're so sold into the idea that they're collecting $10,000 to hire professional petition signature gatherers to do what the grassroots wouldn't.

According to a post on the Recall website on Thursday June 15, 2006:

To accelerate the progress and ensure the goal is achieved the committee will enlist the services of professional circulator's. A trail effort has been made using the professional circulator's to determine quantity of circulators required and cost of this service.

The use of these professionals requires a great deal of funding. These circulator's get paid per signature. Budget required will be $10,000.00 to ensure the required signatures are obtained by the August 25th deadline.

The recall committee is therefore asking for donations. The maximum that an "individual" can donate is $375.00; the amount a business can donate is unlimited. If you, the citizens of Chandler, want this Recall effort be successful, please help us.

Well, I would have thought that if we, the citizens of Chandler, Arizona, wanted this Recall effort to be successful, the organizers would have had no trouble collecting the number of signatures needed without having to beg for money to hire professionals to drum up signatures from people who aren't otherwise already on board with the idea.

And $10,000 seems like a lot of money to waste, just so a small group of angry people can get a little revenge on Council members who made a decision they didn't agree with.

I'd say folks should keep their money and use it to help enjoy their 4th of July weekends.

But then again, I'm a fiscal conservative, so what do I know.