Mayor’s fate up to voters

Spokane voters will decide whether to oust Mayor Jim West for using his office “for personal benefit” in a special, all-mail election scheduled for Dec. 6.

More than enough signatures on petitions calling for the recall election were verified by Spokane County workers, in an 8½ day process that ended at lunchtime Thursday. West and the recall petition author, Shannon Sullivan, will receive a formal certification of the results this morning after the county elections office completes paperwork for county Auditor Vicky Dalton to sign.

For Sullivan, the certification of the recall petition represents the end of an obstacle course that critics said she could not finish. She drafted the petition, overcame a challenge to its wording by West’s attorneys in Spokane County Superior Court, helped defend that ruling against West’s appeal to the state Supreme Court, spearheaded a petition drive that collected 17,434 signatures in three weeks, and recently survived an independent court challenge from an outside source, former Spokane City Councilman Steve Eugster.

“People said an uneducated, unemployed mother from the North Side couldn’t do any of this,” said Sullivan, who has no formal legal training. “Sometimes it just takes one person to stand up and say, ‘Wait a minute, this is wrong.’ “

But Sullivan added that she had help, from her attorney Jerry Davis who donated many hours and from a small army of volunteers “who stepped forward” to gather signatures.

Recall supporters will hold a rally this morning at the elections office, 1033 W. Gardner, after the certificate of the recall is given to Sullivan. She said she’s stepping down from any formal role in the campaign, but plans to have enough input to make sure it doesn’t become “a campaign slamming West.”

“It should be about what’s right and what’s wrong,” she said. Sullivan said she hopes to walk away from the media spotlight and not hold any more news conferences, but may give an occasional speech, if asked.

“I want other women to know … that we can stand up and be heard,” she said.

West said he expected the recall petition to make the ballot, based on the number of signatures submitted and the low rate of rejections. He said he is ready to shift into a campaign to convince voters to keep him, based on “the progress we’ve made and the progress we intend to make.”

“Things are going well in Spokane after how many years of ‘just hanging out,’ ” he said. The campaign “will also be about the fact that everybody’s entitled to a private life.”

Next Wednesday, West’s attorneys will go to court to argue that the contents of the mayor’s city-supplied computer should not be made available to the public or an investigator hired by the City Council because some files it contains are “highly offensive private material that the public shouldn’t see.”

Recall ballots would be mailed out in mid-November to all registered voters in Spokane, and must be postmarked by Dec. 6. Whether West stays in office or is ousted will be decided by a simple majority of those voting.

Sullivan drafted a recall petition after hearing accounts of West’s alleged misconduct, first reported in The Spokesman-Review in a series of stories that began May 5. She said she originally expected to just sign a petition, but discovered that no one had written one, despite public expressions of outrage from business and political groups.

West has been accused of sexual misconduct and abuse of his office; he has denied any illegal activity but has admitted to “poor judgment” in his personal life. The newspaper’s investigation, West’s response and documents from the court cases can be found on the Web site www.spokesmanreview.com.

Other recall supporters volunteered to monitor the signature verification process, where they spent about eight hours each day with West supporters, watching election workers match signatures on the petitions with those in voter registration records.

Dan Lambert, who coordinated volunteers for recall supporters, and Anne Franks, who headed up the West supporters, said the process went smoothly.

Lambert said recall supporters will embark on a campaign that supports the process of people having a choice about whether to keep or remove West as mayor, and to have a heavy turnout for the election.

Franks said many West supporters who volunteered to watch the process have been involved in his past campaigns for the Legislature and the mayor’s office. They have not yet mapped out a strategy to fight the recall.

“We haven’t gotten that far,” she said.

Franks said she planned to stick by the mayor: “All these years, he represented me and he voted the way I agreed with.”