Friday, October 9, 2009
BY MATTHEW VAN DUSEN The Record STAFF WRITER
RIDGEFIELD – A state Superior Court judge cleared the way on Friday for Republicans to circulate a petition to recall Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez.
The petition had been held up over a procedural dispute between Borough Republican Chairman Robert Avery, who filed the lawsuit, and Borough Clerk Martin Gobbo.
Gobbo said the law didn’t allow the Republicans to issue a second notice of intention to recall the mayor after they discovered they didn’t have enough time to collect signatures under the first notice.
“Plainly, the citizens of Ridgefield have not yet been given [the] opportunity to hold such a recall vote,” Judge Robert C. Wilson wrote in his opinion. “They have been effectively disenfranchised with a technicality through the ministerial functions of the borough clerk.”
The Republicans had not gathered any of the more than 1,400 signatures necessary to hold the election, the court wrote.
They now have 160 days to gather and submit the signatures and, if they are successful, residents will vote in a special recall election next year.
The dispute over the notices had prevented Republicans from pushing the petition in the run-up to the Nov. 3 borough council election. Suarez is charged with agreeing to accept a $10,000 bribe from an FBI informant posing as a developer, according to federal court documents.
Suarez’s term expires on Dec. 31, 2011.
Avery and two Republican councilmen gave the first notice to Gobbo in August. But by the time it was approved and Suarez issued a counter-statement only 14 days remained to collect voters’ signatures, according to the suit.
Avery tried to rescind the first notice and file a new one so petition supporters could have more time to gather the necessary signatures. Gobbo argued that the previous notice was a failed effort to recall the mayor and a new recall effort could not start for one year.
The court sided with Avery, finding that the first notice was not complete because it was never circulated and that he was not given the full 160 days to gather signatures.
Avery, who is a lawyer and a 2007 candidate for mayor, represented himself in the matter.
“He was flat wrong,” Avery said of Gobbo. “He succeeded singlehandedly in delaying a recall election.”
Gobbo said he accepted the judge’s ruling and has appended Suarez’s original rebuttal statement to the new petition. The election will cost $16,500, he added.
“I believe they can gather signatures today,” Gobbo said.
