Pipe Up to Oppose The California Pipeline!

Recall Election Certified Against LNG Supporter

March 28th, 2009

Will Coos County Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean be the second Jordan Cove/LNG supporting County Commissioner to be booted out of office?

Coos County Clerk verified that Citizens for Fair and Open Government (the group supporting the recall) collected 4,747 valid signatures from registered voters–1,000 more than were required–to put the question of Stufflebean’s removal before the voters on May 5th.

It’s clear that the grassroots have spoken loudly and clearly; the signature gatherers collected nearly 5,300 signatures in about 30 days. Now the question is: with their project in jeopardy, will Jordan Cove try to use its financial might to trump the will of the voters?

Stufflebean was one of the Commissioners who ignored public testimony that ran 10-1 against the Jordan Cove LNG project and against his own handpicked hearings examiner who said the LNG project should not have been granted a key county permit.

He riled up another group by conducting a secret midnight meeting on former Commissioner John Griffith’s last day in office in 2008 (after the voters booted him in favor of Bob Main) that cut sizable chunks out of the county roads department, making our highways more dangerous just so he and County Commission ally Nikki Whitty wouldn’t have to face Main’s questions about the cuts.

With unemployment in the County nearing 14 percent (the worst in 30 years), no economic plan to create new jobs and drastic cuts to the Sheriff’s office, Stufflebean better hope that Jordan Cove is willing to pour some serious campaign contributions against this recall to try to save his hide–because with law enforcement, unions, property rights advocates, open government advocates, LNG opponents, environmentalists and public safety advocates all clamoring for his dismissal–he is running out of supporters.

Watch for two things:

1) Jordan Cove’s PR machine and campaign contributions to kick into high gear

2) Stufflebean’s few remaining supporters to try to follow the same strategy that politicians in trouble have used since the advent of democracy–create a straw man. Stufflebean supporters will blame government employees, federal timber payments, environmentalists and anyone else they can throw mud at to distract voters from the truth–in his nearly 2 1/2 years on the Commission, Stufflebean has had no plan to create jobs, made our families and roads less safe and has been unresponsive to his constituents.

Let the campaign begin.

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