UPFRONT: Total Recall

A few weeks ago, we shared an amazing journey through make-believe land, a magical land overflowing with bacon, cigarette forests, lakes of booze, rivers of glitter, fields of iced-cream cones as far as the eye can spy, a 52-week NFL season, and, did I mention, plentiful bacon?

Oh, wait, that’s not how it was. It was a morally ambiguous land full of shady characters and broken dreams, an insular island of physical and emotional destruction awash in an ocean of indignation, populated by people who do not always do the right thing. I received a tsunami of angry emails about make-believe land – strangely, only from Erie Reader Gold Pass subscribers – demanding clarification, so allow me to do just that: if, in the future you insist upon sailing the seas of make-believe, visit Upfrontia instead, as the make-believe land in “The Two Joes” is a far darker place, and you can’t even drink the water there because it’s all fracked up. Come to think of it, let’s not go there again.

“The Two Joes” was a comparison piece highlighting the similarities between Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and Erie County Councilman Joe Giles. In each case, both men should have known a crime had been committed, both men had a moral obligation to contact the police immediately upon that realization, and both men willfully ignored that obligation. The difference was that, after a deluge of outrage, one man lost his job. Giles has weathered his storm, and still represents Erie County’s Second Council District.

Let us continue the comparative motif and turn our eyes to Ebert Beeman, who I understand now has a fancy piece of electronic ankle jewelry to show off around the house. Unlike Paterno and Giles, this man was not simply aware of a crime that had been committed; he is a convicted criminal and a tax cheat. Previously indicted on eight counts of Social Security fraud, Beeman was recently held in contempt of federal court for refusing to vacate four of his properties that had been seized by the Internal Revenue Service on account of his failure to pay $2.1 million in taxes. Despite his current confinement to house arrest, Beeman has weathered his storm, and still represents Erie County’s Sixth Council District.

So why haven’t these two jokers been Paterno’d yet? Because YOU haven’t gotten off your lazy asses and fired them yet.

I bet that you didn’t even know that there is a removal process for elected officials in Erie County. It’s really simple and only requires strict compliance with awkwardly worded local laws subject to unpredictable interpretations by County employees and Commonwealth courtrooms before ultimately being decided by a small group of rank idiots: you, the voters who put these ersatz Commissioners there in the first place.

Let me tell you how this all works. According to Erie County’s Home Rule Charter – Article X, for those of you following along at home – here’s what YOU must do to wash clean this dirty laundry and initiate recall proceedings against Joe Giles and/or Ebert Beeman:

This process starts with a voter list and some good ol’ fashioned shoe leather – it’s down ‘n’ dirty door-to-door duty, so throw on your rubbers and head out into the downpour. You need to gather signatures from 30 percent of the registered voters in that County Council District to force a ballot question. In this case, that’s about 7,500 signatures. If you had ten people knocking on doors eight hours a day, circulating these petitions would probably take you about 20 days, according to calculations from the Upfront logistics department. And, just to trip you up, the people who actually go out and collect the signatures must be registered voters in that district.

In addition to collecting the signatures, petition circulators must also document the signer’s occupation, residence, election district, and the date of signing. Circulators must also affirm, on each sheet of the petition, that to the best of their “knowledge and belief those persons whose signatures appear on the sheet are registered electors of the county or council district, they signed with full knowledge of the contents of the petition, and their residences are correctly given.” This means no shenanigans, and no leaving the petition lying around unattended at some bar; there’s no time for that – signatures are not valid if they were made more than 60 days prior to the date the petition is filed, so you don’t have a lot of time to go out and get all 7,500 of them.

Once you have amassed enough signatures, take those petitions over to the County Courthouse at 140 W. Sixth Street and file them with the Erie County Board of Elections, Room 105. Within 15 days, the Erie County Board of Elections will rule on the validity of the signatures; this ruling is subject to immediate review by the Court of Common Pleas, just to be certain there are no irregularities. Once this filing is approved, “the chairman of the Board of Elections shall notify the incumbent named in the petition that the petition has been filed. Upon receipt of such notice, the incumbent may resign from office and thereupon the recall proceedings shall terminate.”

That’s right – Giles and Beeman have a way out of this hot water.

When a petition is deemed “sufficient,” the incumbent has the option to resign – with honor, like a ship’s captain scuttling his own vessel – before being subject to the tempest of an actual recall election. If no resignation occurs within 10 days, the Erie County Board of Elections will throw an election in that district 30 to 90 days thereafter. That election would feature a simple yes or no question. “Shall (name of official) be recalled and removed from the office of (name of office)?” If voters approve, removal occurs seven days later.

This sounds easily doable to me; I’ve engaged personally in far more substantial petition drives, and while they are difficult by design, this one’s not particularly arduous. The hardest part is finding the labor to flood the neighborhoods with petitions – the Upfront logistics department also reports that hiring 10 people to work 20 eight-hour days at minimum wage would cost in excess of $11,000. I suggest you find a bunch of people who have lots of free time on their hands, have an insatiable thirst for change, and have no idea of how to do anything productive but inhale mace and nightsticks while occupying gazeboes in public parks. That’s right, #occupiers, I’m calling you out – I want to see results, or I want to see you go home already; you seem ignorant to the potential power you could wield, and it’s just, well, painful to see y’all sitting out there, high on dedication but low on accomplishment. More has been accomplished with fewer resources than you have, #occupiers, I assure you, and the results in this case would be undeniable. Indeed, a successful local effort like the one outlined above could have a ripple effect on other ‘occupy’ movements nationwide, like the proverbial cinder-block in the mud puddle, which, thereby amplified, spawns a tidal wave of reciprocal accomplishment.

I’ve led you to water, #occupiers. Thirsty? If not, go home – those breakdancers want their gazebo back.

Cory Vaillancourt is a brilliant writer/complete hack and can be complimented/heckled at cVaillancourt@ErieReader.com. 

RELATED ARTICLES