Price recall campaign says it aims to submit 110K signatures

The campaign working to recall DA Pamela Price plans to submit 110,000 signatures to the county — and already has more than enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, organizers said Thursday.

The group, dubbed Save Alameda For Everyone (SAFE), says it is now pushing county officials for details on exactly what will happen once the signatures are submitted for review.

"They have five business days to give us a clearer guideline on what they plan on doing," said Brenda Grisham, who has been leading the recall charge along with Oakland Chinatown business leader Carl Chan. "They have to figure it out."

Under Alameda County's current rules, the county will have 10 days to validate the recall signatures, which the group says it aims to submit within the next few weeks, and 45 days to schedule an election.

The registrar of voters has previously said it cannot comply with the 10-day timeline, and the county has now asked voters to update the recall rules to reflect state law.

That question is set to come before voters on the March ballot — but it remains to be seen how or if that will affect the Price recall effort, which began last year.

In its announcement Thursday, the recall campaign said it plans to submit 110,000 signatures, and that collection is still underway.

Under the county rules, the recall campaign needs about 73,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Grisham said the recall team asked the county in November for a meeting to hammer out key details. But there was no response, she said.

"We asked them if we could have an in-person meeting because there has been a lot of confusion going on," Grisham said Thursday. "To this day we have not gotten a sit-down meeting."

Read more about Pamela Price on The Scanner.

The county did provide written guidance to the campaign last year as to what it needed to do as far as signature collection, Grisham said. The campaign has been following those rules to date, she said.

Grisham said the recall team is now checking the signatures on the front end to confirm that enough of them are valid.

Once that's done, the campaign will announce the final tally to be submitted.

Grisham also said Alameda County has had plenty of notice to get resources in place — to validate the signatures and follow the existing rules — given that the campaign has been in touch with the county since last summer about its plans.

Recall proponents have cited rising crime along with Price's treatment of victims and alleged mismanagement of her office as reasons the elected district attorney should be replaced.

Price supporters say that she is being blamed for things she can't control and that she should be given more time to do her job, particularly as she was elected on a progressive platform of reform to correct systemic problems.

Who might replace Price and how that person will be chosen remain open questions.

Under the existing county rules, replacement candidates — none of whom have publicly come forward to date — would appear on the ballot following the recall question.

Campaign organizers say the recall would likely trigger a special election.

County officials have estimated that could cost up to $20 million, or $20 per voter.

The recall team said no explanation has been provided to the campaign about how those costs were calculated.

The Alameda County registrar of voters, which is facing litigation related to how prior elections have been conducted, has failed to respond to repeated inquiries from The Berkeley Scanner about how the recall election might work.

Stay tuned for ongoing coverage on The Berkeley Scanner.

CORRECTION: The recall campaign said it plans to submit 110,000 signatures to the county and already has more than 80,000 signatures at this time. More concrete numbers will be available in the coming weeks, the campaign said.

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