March 04, 2011 06:42 PM UTC

McBride's Comments Raise Questions About Recall Effort

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• by: c rork

(More recall shenanigans. – promoted by Aristotle)

The campaign committee seeking to recall DPS board President Nate Easley failed to file a campaign finance report by the deadline, yesterday. The committee has claimed to be running a full-fledged petitioning operation to gather 5,363 signatures by March 29th. The first report by the committee supporting Easley on Feb. 16th showed $16,275 raised, with no expenses listed.

The comments of John McBride, who registered the committee, should be cause for concern:

“We don’t have any money to file anything,” said John McBride, the lead petitioner in the recall effort against Easley and the registered agent for the committee Take Back Our Schools. “We don’t have a bank account yet. All we have is people power.”

The committee must file a report regardless of whether any money was spent or donated. I find it a little hard to believe that any money supporting the recall has been sitting in a sock drawer since the first filing deadline and that a petitioning effort hasn’t generated any expenses, whatsoever. Petitions, pens, printers, organizers, phones, clipboards, websites and database access can’t be purchased with people power. And if there have been expenses, how are they being tracked without a bank account? The lack of accountability or organization from the committee is shocking.

This comes on the heels of a diary that thoroughly debunked the purported reason behind the recall effort and included proponents of the recall using highly questionable tactics to intimidate bloggers.

The cost of a recall effort may set DPS back about $100,000 if the recall doesn’t coincide with the mayoral election. The district is already facing a $23 million reduction in total program funding next year.

The opponents of the recall include Gov. Hickenlooper and former mayors Frederico Pena and Wellington Webb.