District C Council Member Diane Sharp, who already resigned as mayor due to fallout from an affordable housing project issue, is now the subject of a recall effort.
The initial qualification filed by Jim Nelson was rejected yesterday but City Clerk Natalie Corral said she expected Nelson to fix the petition and refile the notice.
Should the initial notice qualify recall backers would have 60 days to gather signatures. Recall backers need 1,550 signatures of registered voters for the recall to get on the ballot.
A source knowledgeable with the possible recall effort says the organizing group is well funded.
Attempts to contact Nelson were unsuccessful.
Sharp angered voters by her handling of a meeting regarding the Northstar affordable housing project near 11th and Fargo avenues. The vast majority of the 700 attending were opposed. North Hanford is a more economically advantaged part of the city.
“This attempted filing is not a surprise,” said Sharp, “….a group of folks concerned about the impacts of the Northstar Courts development threatened via social media and in person weeks ago that if I did not vote in the way they liked regarding the project, they were going to attempt to throw me out of office.”
There are “…about 12,000 folks in District C. I am honored to have the strong support of many members of our community,” she said.
Sharp ran unopposed for her northeast Hanford seat which was previously held by Martin Devine. Devine did not run for re-election.
The Northstar project is permitted in that zone of the city so the project did not have to be approved by the planning commission or city council. The city did do a site plan review of the project. The city council has admitted they were caught off-guard by the existence of the project.
Self-Help Enterprises of Visalia and Upholdings, the principals of the project, did not respond substantively to requests for comment on the status of the project.
Won’t happen. Won’t ever get the votes let alone signatures. The voters in that district aren’t fools.