Fairfax recall effort gets advice of expert

A group attempting to recall two members of the Fairfax Town Council has received coaching from someone who has been there and done that.

Chris Moore, who helped lead the recall of Sheng Thao as Oakland’s mayor and Pamela Price as Alameda County district attorney, said he has given the group a few pointers. But he minimized his involvement.

“I’m not a paid consultant for them. You could say I’m an adviser,” Moore said. “I just provide a little bit of advice here and there. They bounce stuff off me.”

Moore first got involved last year during an initial effort to put the recall of Stephanie Hellman and Lisel Blash on the November ballot. That effort led by Lynnette Shaw, founder of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, ran into problems interpreting all of the state’s technical requirements for submitting a recall petition. The town clerk and town attorney declined to provide guidance.

“It was just missing a sentence or two,” Moore said. “The missing items weren’t that big a deal.”

Moore helped them fix the problem, but with three of the council’s five incumbents facing challengers in November, the recall proponents decided against putting it on the ballot.

One of the incumbents who sought reelection, Barbara Coler, was successful, so the insurgents still lack a majority. New recall notices were filed with the town in March, and the requisite number of signatures was confirmed the very next day.

“They called me about filing the notice of intent,” Moore said. “They had it pretty much done. I just helped them get through some of the details.”

Moore said he also provided the group with examples of the written petitions that were used in the Oakland recalls; recommended they work with Greenberg Traurig, a Sacramento law firm known for its lobbying work; and met with recall leaders to brief them on how the East Bay recalls were conducted.

“We went over our entire process, so they got an understanding of everything that they should do,” he said.

Moore, who owns and manages rental properties in Oakland, said none of his recall work has been for money.

“I’m not doing this to get a new job or anything like that,” he said. “I’m truly trying to help. A lot of people don’t believe it, but that’s the honest truth.”

Moore stressed that the group running the second recall effort in Fairfax needs little assistance.

“There is a different core team that is really driving this,” he said. “It is more professional and organized.”

Sean Fitzgerald, who has a bachelor’s degree in international business and has held various banking positions, is a leader of the new recall effort.

“We have a diverse coalition this time, maybe a couple hundred residents that are supporting this,” Fitzgerald said.

The recall proponents have a professional-looking website at recallfairfax.com that lays out the argument for the recall and provides background information on the issues involved. The recall opponents have their own site at fairfax4civility.org.

Fitzgerald said his group built its website without any assistance from Moore.

Fitzgerald said he moved to Fairfax in 2019 because of deteriorating conditions in the San Francisco neighborhood where he was living.

“There was someone that was defecating on my doorstep every day,” he said. “It was an icky lifestyle.”

One of the things motivating Fitzgerald to participate in the recall is the way town officials have handled the camp of homeless people in the park, which is adjacent to a Little League field. The recall website asserts that Hellman and Blash “have ignored repeated pleas from residents to address the massive homeless encampment.”

“There are a number of things on their website that I think are outright wrong,” Blash said Friday, “and then there are other things where I think that they have put a misleading spin on some factual information.”

Hellman could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Michael Rosenthal, a retired television producer who has lived in Fairfax since the 1980s, has led a group of people who have been rallying at the Fairfax Parkade on Sundays in opposition to the recall. The also have been distributing leaflets door to door.

“My personal feeling is that a recall should be for malfeasance in office,” Rosenthal said. “It shouldn’t be because you have political differences, especially when these two councilwomen will be up for reelection again next year.”