An effort to remove three members of the Blue Lake City Council succeeded in collecting only enough valid signatures for one recall election to move forward, that of Mayor Pro Tem Elise Scafani.
In an interview with the Journal, Interim Blue Lake City Manager Jill Duffy said the city received three of what are known as Signature Verification Certificates from the Humboldt County Elections Office around 11 a.m. today showing the petitions to recall Mayor John Sawatzky and Councilmember Kat Napier fell five and four signatures short, respectively, of the 250 mark required by law.
The petition regarding Scafani had 254 signatures deemed “sufficient” by the elections office out of a total of 276, with 22 found to be “insufficient,” two of those due to duplication. Scafani did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
In Sawatzky’s case, 245 of the 267 signatures submitted were found to be “sufficient,” with 22 “insufficient,” including three duplications. Similarly for Napier, 246 of the 269 signatures were deemed “sufficient,” while 23 were found to be “insufficient,” with three duplications.
Duffy said an agenda item to “accept” the certificates will come before the city council at their next regularly scheduled meeting on Aug. 26 along with one to declare a recall election, which the city is required to do within 14 days of that meeting and then hold that election within 125 days.
Duffy said the cost of the recall election, which will be paid for by the city, is estimated to be $10,000 to $12,000.
With only one of the three petitions collecting enough valid signatures, an issue that had been looming over the city — what would happen if all three council members were recalled leaving the council without a quorum and seemingly no legislative remedy at hand — is no longer on the table, with Duffy saying that “major uncertainty” has been lifted. (Read more on that in the Journal’s July 17 story “Without Precedent.”)
Meanwhile, the answer to the question of what would happen if Scafani were to resign is that the recall election would still move forward, according to Duffy, who says the “recall train has been set on a track and it’s going to continue until it’s at the end of the line.”
The recall effort’s first official steps began May 27, when proponents served each of the three council members with a notice of recall petition, which cited the council’s decision to part ways with former longtime City Manager Amanda Mager and its decision not to approve the city’s overdue Housing Element in the face of threatened fines from the state of California. Those actions the recall supporters have said”placed this city in jeopardy.”
The three council members targeted, Sawatzky, Napier and Scafani, meanwhile, have argued they’ve acted in the city’s best interest and the recall amounts to sour grapes over recent election results.
The council has since taken action to move forward on the Housing Element.
This article appears in Best of Show 2025.
