RECALL EFFORT VS. SELECTMEN STARTS

RECALL EFFORT VS. SELECTMEN STARTS
Damien Fisher
News Staff Writer

A group of residents are asking to have Elizabeth Hunt and Fedor Berndt recalled from the selectboard for reportedly not firing the town manager.

Members of the group, Stand Up for Toy Town, which was previously known as Taking Back Our Town, filed with the town clerk’s office yesterday approximately 420 signatures supporting a recall election against both Ms. Hunt and Mr. Berndt.

The group has been collecting signatures for months, and Monday’s filing represents the first part of the process. Once all of the signatures are checked and verified by the town clerk, the group will have 20 days to collect more than 900 signatures against each candidate. The town clerk has up to 10 days to conduct the verification process after paperwork is submitted.

Danielle Hart, one of the Standing Up for Toy Town leaders, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday, nor did Ms. Hunt.

Ms. Hart’s group has been critical of Town Manager James Kreidler, demanding that the select board fire him over the town’s financial crisis. While Mr. Kreidler has worked with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and town employees to come up with a plan to eliminate the $3.4 million deficit, Ms. Hart and her group have called for state oversight of the town’s finances.

Ms. Hart and her group staged a successful vote at the Nov. 24 special Town Meeting asking the select board to remove Mr. Kreidler, however, ultimately, the vote was non-binding. The select board has publically backed Mr. Kreidler during the crisis, and it negotiated a three-year contract extension with him that includes a three percent pay cut.

Mr. Berndt has questions about the signatures included in Monday’s filing, and has already lined up volunteers to review all of the names independent from the town clerk’s verification.

“I’ve been told there are a lot of signatures you can’t read,” he said.

Under the town’s charter, a recall first requires the filing of an affidavit. The affidavits must include signatures from a least five percent of the total number of voters registered in the last election. Mr. Berndt said both of his children, who are too young to be eligible to vote, were at one point asked to sign. He said he is concerned that there might be signatures of people who are not eligible to vote.

If enough of the signatures do check out, the town clerk will issue official petitions for Ms. Hart and her group to collect at least 920 signatures, or about at least 15 percent of the total number of voters registered in the last election. A recall election requires a voter turnout of at least 20 percent of the total number of registered voters to participate.

That assumes there is no legal challenge to the reasons presented. The town’s charter states: “Grounds for recall shall include: lack of fitness for office, corruption, neglect of duties, misfeasance, or malfeasance.”

If either Ms. Hunt or Mr. Berndt do not think the reasons presented by Ms. Hart rise to the legal threshold of a recall, they would be able to challenge the affidavits in court. Mr. Berndt said yesterday that he is considering his options and gathering information.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, we’ll see how it goes,” he said.