The petitions to recall three Riviera Beach city council members have not even been counted and verified yet by the supervisor of elections office, they’re already being challenged by the city.
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City Attorney Andrew DeGraffenreidt sent a letter to Supervisor of Elections, Susan Bucher, saying that some of the petitions had missed the 30-day deadline outlined by city charter.
“I was shocked,” said Amon Yisrael, who is leading the recall effort.
DeGraffenreidt said in the letter that some petitions were signed in early October, September, and August.
“Where do these dates come from?” Yisrael asked.
Yisrael and his attorney, John Whittles, said those dates are plain wrong.
“I know it for certain, it’s not accurate,” Whittles said.
Whittles said he knows because he wrote the petition document in his office on the weekend of Oct. 14.
“And I was there at a meeting when the first documents were being signed on Oct. 16,” Whittles said.
DeGraffenreidt claims in his letter that some of the petitions were signed as early as January.
Yisrael said that couldn’t be possible since that was way before the whole controversy, surrounding the firing of City Manager Jonathan Evans, started on Sept. 20.
“January? We had a city manager named Jonathan Evans at that time,” Yisrael said.
In fact, most of the dates mentioned in DeGraffenreidt’s letter are before Evans was fired.
Israel said the group has collected around 9,000 petitions.
“Those thousands have put them (council members Terence Davis, Lynne Hubbard, and Dawn Pardo) in office and those thousands want to remove them from office because they’re not listening,” Yisrael said.
The letter by DeGraffenreidt has no immediate consequences.
Bucher told WPTV she is only responsible for counting and verifying the petitions and she is not involved in determining what happens next.
