A month ago, a PAC was created called TOOTHINOV.ORG. This PAC was formed by Oro Valley Resident Shirl Lamonna. Lamonna formed the PAC because she was concerned that the purchase of the El Conquistador Country Club by the Town Of Oro Valley was a substantial overreach for the community. The goal of TOOTHINOV.ORG was to get a sufficient number of signatures to require a voter referendum on Oro Valley's planned purchase, a purchase LOVE and its readers have discussed at great length.
TOOTHINOV.ORG had 30 days to gather 1,148 registered Oro Valley voter signatures. It had to do so during the Christmas and New Year's holidays, This is a time when people are not available or not around.
It was a daunting task.
Lamonna never doubted that it could be done.
Today, at 4pm, TOOTHINOV.ORG filed more 3,160 signatures of registered Oro Valley voters. That is 3 times the required number. It is an astounding number of signatures gathered by a group of more than 50 volunteers. In fact, we can not recall an Oro Valley situation in which an issue gathered as many signatures. Recall, that just one year ago, Mayor Hiremath and a group of his supporters could not get the approximately 2,000 signatures to force a recall election on Council Member Zinkin.
The number of TOOTHINOV.ORG registered voter signatures collected are more than 30% of the total number of votes cast for the mayor position last August! And these signatures were collected in one month, during the holiday season.
What is next?
The Oro Valley town clerk's office has 20 days, excluding weekends and holidays, to certify the petition, Then, the county's election office has 15 days, excluding weekends and holidays to do their review. "This is all by statute," according to Council Member Brendan Burns this past Sunday at at "Meet Your Council Man" Session. Burns has been trying to get a discussion of a possible referendum in executive session but "...the Mayor did not want it."
By our calculation, latest date for certification is February 26.
Read the TOOTHINOV.ORG press release.
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17 comments:
Wow! It is so humbling to witness the amazing people we have living here in Oro Valley. I hope that we can continue to stop the cronyism and blatant non-transparent processes that appear to have taken root in our own backyard. I would hate to see our beautiful town turn into just another Chicago-style political arena. Way to go OV!
Thank you to all the wonderful people who made this petition drive work!!
Recall the "Mayor" and have Zinkin run against him. At least HE watches out for us!
Let me tell you what happened next . . .I filed the necessary paperwork late this morning for a second petition effort for a referendum. I left Town Hall at 11:50 AM. Even though we came up short by only 78 signatures, in less than five hours we collected 1,070 signatures.
Sadly, I doubt this amazing result will sway Mayor Hiremath, Vice Mayor Waters or Council members Snider or Hornat anymore than the 3,170 signatures collected in less than a month and over the holidays.
Thank you Oro Valley residents. Thank you Shirl and Debra. What an amazing afternoon. Think about what we did. 1070 signatures in just under 5 hours.
With over 3000 signatures, how were you 78 short? And the news said something about a wrong number on the sign-up sheets. Please explain.
When the petitions were submitted yesterday (January 15th) we learned that the sheets should have had the OV reference number instead of the resolution number. I am still optimistic that they will be accepted. However, after receiving a phone call from Shirl, I submitted the paperwork for a second referendum petition. I left Town Hall at 11:50 AM and returned at 4:55 PM with 1070 signatures - short 78 for the needed 1148.
We can be proud of the results of both petition efforts.
Over 3000 signatures in 29 days. Over 1000 signatures in 6 hours. Do you think the four of them will listen? I kinda doubt it. The People emailed them expressing displeasure in the El Con purchase,spoke against the purchase at the Council meeting, yet they still vote for it. The only thing left to do is get rid of them. They are not there to serve the interests of the People.
Wow, in the eight years I've lived here I've never see the residents of Oro Valley so involved and ready for action! This effort has united residents of all political affiliations, and neighbors are looking out for each other. I'm proud to say I'm a resident of Oro Valley.
The Mayor, his three council people, and HSL have sparked the fire that can't be extinguished by their dismissive attitude. Apathy is dead in OV, and replaced by determination and zeal on the part of it's citizens!
Let's use this impetus and start a recall on the Gang of Four. They need to go.
Motion seconded!
At least get ready. We need to see how they handle this. If they ignore our wishes, GO!
Just curious, whose fault was the OOPS? Were you "set-up" or was it an honest mistake?
I am with the others who want to clean house! The arrogance and lack of professional conduct on the part of all four fraudulent ones are disgusting and demeaning to our town. I will spend another 50 plus hours getting signatures!
Actually, it was in less than 5 hours.
Too bad an e-mail wasn't sent out. I bet people would have shown up to sign.
An e-mail was sent out to everyone whose e-mail address we had and those people forwarded the e-mail to others as well. That's how they got over 1000 signatures in less than 5 hours.
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