Potrero Planning Group members Mary Johnson, Gordon Hammers (current chairman), and Jerry Johnson are among those who are being recalled.

     The number of signatures submitted ranged from 190 to 202 for each planner, with Chairman Gordon Hammers receiving the most votes favoring his recall, proponents said. At last count, Potrero had 435 registered voters; however that number has grown since several people registered to vote in order to sign the petition.
     Following validation, an election must be called within 88 to 125 days.
     “The Registrar’s office said this is precedent-setting,” said Jan Hedlun, Jan Hedlun, the lone planner opposed to Blackwater USA’s proposal to build a private military training camp in Potrero — and the only planner not targeted by the recall.
     “They don’t want to listen to the people,” Terry Stephens said of the members facing recall. “What prompted me to throw my hat into the ring here is it’s the good old boy’s club run rampant.
Stephens, a former planning group member, is one of six community residents who have stepped forward to run as a slate of anti-Blackwater candidates to replace the current board.
     “Certain board members have their own private agenda going,” she said. “Gordon, if you don’t agree with him, he will tear you apart literally in the Hotline newsletter…The majority of people here in Potrero just want to be left alone. They don’t want to have to go to a board meeting and hear yelling and screaming. I just want to live peacefully. With Blackwater coming, people are saying `I don’t want to be next to a training camp, and the board does not want to listen. What I want to do if I am elected is to listen to the people.”
     Stephens criticized Hammers for telling residents that there are only viable options for the former chicken ranch property, which is situated on agriculturally protected land bounded by the Cleveland National Forest and Hauser Wilderness area. “Gordon has said it’s either Blackwater or 20 ranchettes,” she recalled. “He wants to portray that as an either or, and it’s not. There could be many choices,” she said, citing a dude ranch as one possibility. “It’s not even zoned commercial and they want to change the total zoning to accommodate Blackwater.”
     Stephens believes homes would be a preferable alternative to Blackwater, however. “What’s wrong with 20 ranchettes?” she asked. “It would bring families in, brings a community together, brings money to our community and people who will go to our schools.”
     Carl Meyer, a farmer and former planner who helped organize the recall petition drive, seeks to become the board’s new Chairman. Other candidates include Fran Materra, a United Methodist minister, Janet Good, a tax consultant, William Lucas Crawley IV, a real estate professional, and Tina McCunney, a teacher at Patrick Henry High School known to students as Mrs. Brown.
     “As the board stands now, it would be painful to be on it,” McCunney noted, “but I think if we got some polite, courteous and civil people, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
     McCunney said her primary goal, if elected, would be to “get a concrete community plan for the 20/20 vision, because it was just left up in the air” by the present board. “It would solve so many problems, because then when anything is going to happen here, it would match our community plan.”
     McCunney concluded that some good has already come from the experience. “Going through this whole process of petitioning against Blackwater and the recall has really made people in the community get to know each other,” she said. “It has brought out the best in most people, and the worst in some.”
     “I am gratified that the community likes what I’ve done so far,” said Hedlun, “even though I don’t feel like I’ve done very much.” Asked about the prospect of having new faces join the board if a recall election proves successful, she replied, “It would be nice to have a more evenly balanced board.”
     Muddying the waters still further, planner Emil Susu’s seat was declared vacant by the County Board of Supervisors in April after news broke that Susu, a former Florida resident, failed to reregister as a voter in Potrero. At a July meeting of the planning group, Hammers sparked criticism for allowing Susu to continue to sit with the board despite the fact that the County Supervisors have not confirmed his reappointment after he reportedly changed his registration to Potrero.
     “I don’t know why they would even allow someone to sit at the table when they are not a board member,” said Hedlun. Asked whether Susu participated in discussions with the board, she replied, “Hell, yes. He was snide and insulting again, as he has always been.”
     Now, Meyers contends that he has evidence to prove that two additional members were never formally appointed by the Supervisors.
     “It is official,” he told The Alpine Sun. “The County has no record of either Eric Berger or Mike Rubalcava ever being appointed by the Supervisors to the Potrero Planning Group.”
     Supervisor Dianne Jacob’s office was not able to confirm before press deadline whether Berger or Rubalcava were lawfully appointed. But spokesperson Jennifer Stone observed, “If they are not legitimate members, then there would not be any point in having a recall.”
     That raises the possibility that Berger and Rubalcava’s names could be resubmitted, by Hammers, to the Supervisors for appointment after certification of the recall. Asked whether Jacob would consider reappointment of members named in a recall, Stone declined to comment pending determination of Berger and Rubalcava’s status.
     At a contentious meeting on July 12, board member Thell Fowler urged community members to “work together as a community” despite the pending recall.
     His plea appeared to fall on deaf ears.
     According to an article in The Alpine Sun, “…board tempers flared and the discussion turned into an angry yelling match. Several board members directly and indirectly attacked residents and fellow planners, and outbursts from both sides interrupted the meeting and degraded the conversation to mere shouting over each other.”
     Hammers faulted citizens for launching the recall based on the board’s failure to halt Blackwater early in the process.
     The Potrero Planning Group, which previously approved the Blackwater project in December 2007, opted at the July 12 meeting 1 to postpone approval of a conditional project approval resolution until August.
     Planning Group seats are considered nonpartisan. But charges of political interference have been made by both sides.
     The California Democratic Party passed a resolution opposing the Blackwater project. Ray Lutz, chairman of the East County Democratic Club and Citizens Oversight Panels, has been an outspoken opponent of the project but stopped short of offering any assistance in the recall, insisting such actions should be left to Potrero residents.
     But Hammers, a Republican accused Democrats of interference. In the meeting, he admitted seeking help from the San Diego Republican Party.
     The GOP responded by sending all Republican voters in Potrero a letter signed by Tony Krvaric, chairman of the San Diego County GOP. That letter urged residents not to sign the recall petitions and warned, Voters also report receiving anonymous robo-calls stating, “These outsiders shouldn’t be making our decisions for us.”
     The letter and phone calls riled up many Potrero Republicans, many of whom signed the petitions. In fact, Meyer estimates that nearly half of the petition signers are registered as Republicans. Krvaric’s letter also failed to mention that of the six anti-Blackwater candidates who have thus far stepped forward to run, at least three are registered Republicans.
     Some Republicans in Potrero sent a blistering letter back to Krvaric, observing that the petition drive was handled entirely by Potrero residents — and that the only “outside” interference had come from the Republican party.
     “As a lifelong Republican, I oppose Blackwater and totally support the recall,” wrote Barbara C. Simmons in an e-mail forwarded to this newspaper. “There are LOTS of Republicans in Potrero who feel exactly as I do and are NOT fooled by anything that Gordon says. Don’t worry — not all Republicans are idiots.”


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