Vallejo’s recount results exposed elected officials' questionable fairness standards.  

City of Vallejo California was in the national spotlight, because its mayoral election resulted in a tie on election night.  For a time, Vallejo residents seemed fortunate to have two high quality candidates contesting for the position. Both of them showed class and strong leadership qualities as they waited final election results.  Then, the pressure cracked the façade of pretended leadership qualities of one candidate and three other elected officials.

Mayor candidates Gary Cloutier and Osby Davis tied with 5158 votes on election night. Then, the lead switched back and forth until Cloutier ended the winner by four votes. Local government  bodies certified the vote and Vallejo swore Cloutier in a mayor. Then, Davis called for a recount that he won by three votes.

Later, the Registrar of voters found one ballot for Cloutier in the trash. This single vote did not change the results. Therefore, election law required Cloutier to surrender the elective office of mayor to Davis. This is when some people’s façade of sound leadership qualities cracked to reveal some troubling deficiencies.

Election law provided Cloutier the choice to file an affidavit with the County Clerk claiming recount irregularities and to request a court ordered recount. However, he could not complete this process before the next city council meeting when the law required him to yield the mayor’s seat to Davis the certified winner.

Cloutier decided that his goal to be Vallejo’s mayor trumped election law. He sent a five-page letter to the Solano County Board of Supervisors listing claims of election irregularities. He asked them not to certify the recount election so he could continue as Vallejo’s mayor.  Then, he petitioned Solano Superior Court to grant an injunction preventing Vallejo City Council certifying the recount election and swearing Davis in as mayor.

Cloutier’s letter to the Board of Supervisors and his court request for an injunction were devious and self-serving. He cited sections of the Election Code that allegedly supported his claims of vote count irregularities.  Conveniently, he omitted the Election Code Sections that mandated the procedures a candidate must follow to challenge recount results. In addition, he omitted the sections that showed Solano Board of Supervisors and Solano County Court did not have authority to do what he asked them to do.

Fortunately, only Supervisor Barbara Kondylis from Vallejo supported Cloutier’s try to evade election laws. She voted against certifying the recount results. She wanted to delay the Supervisors’ confirmation of the recall election results until a Superior Court judge ruled on Cloutier’s petition for an injunction. The Supervisors had no legal authority to consider anything but the Registrar of Voters report of the election. It would have been unfair to Davis and illegal for them to usurp the Legislature’s authority and change the election process as Cloutier requested them to do.

Unfortunately, Vallejo Council members Stephanie Gomes and Joanne Schively had different standards of fairness and different standards for deciding responsible acts. They voted against the resolution reciting the facts of the mayoral election recall results. Their votes were an embarrassment to Vallejo.

The “no” votes did not make sense, because the law did not allow the council this discretion.  Council members were not confirming the rightness of what happen, that is a decision for the court if Cloutier files the proper legal challenge. Election law assigns them the duty to certify by their vote that the council received election results from the Registrar of Voters. It did receive those results, so “Yes” was their only legal response. 

Election law mandates the council must immediately swear the successful candidates into office.  Council members have no legal authority to reject election results or to deny a candidate his or her seat. Therefore, Gomes and Schively accomplished nothing by their “no” except to create unnecessary conflict among council members.

One requirement of responsible leadership is that officeholders should make informed, tough, decisions when necessary even if it causes controversy. Another one requires them to support the democratic process and to avoid creating controversy just to make a personal statement about an issue not within their official purview.

Gomes and Schively’s conduct is more troubling for what it reveals about their reasoning process and standards of fairness. They decided a conclusion about this important matter based only on hearsay and without a full hearing to deliberate the issue.  They acted without reviewing applicable law designed to produce a fair result or they acted in defiance of it. Worse, they were policy makers who wrongly injected themselves into a judicial role of government.

Contact Kenneth Brooks  at P.O. B 882, Vallejo, CA 94590