RSM City Councilman Tony Beall Served With Recall Papers

In a shocking, but not surprising development last night (I say not surprising because people in Dove Canyon have been talking about recalling Beall for a while now), Councilman Tony Beall was served with an intent to recall him from public office. As we've seen recently, Tony and his wife Jennifer, who is an elected figure in her own right as a Republican Central Committee representative for the 73rd district, seem to have their fingers in a lot of pies in Orange County and finally the residents of Rancho Santa Margarita have had enough and made their displeasure known. There is a Recall Councilman Beall Facebook page up already which has video from what happened last night, I got permission to copy the video to YouTube, so that link will be in this story for those that don't use Facebook.

The complaint that was served to him reads:

“L. Anthony Beall is an embarrassment to our community and a failure as our city councilmember. After nearly 15-years on the city council it’s time for a change. He opposes term-limits, voting twice against it. Voted twice to preserve his lucrative council benefits package including spiking his city pension. Voted against displaying “In God We Trust” in city council chambers. Supports high density development sweetheart deals in Dove Canyon for his buddies.”

The facebook page also gives some details about the next steps, which reads:

"There are over 28,000 registered voters in RSM and 20% are required on the recall petition, there is 120 days to collect those signatures. About 5,700 valid signatures are required, so be safe we are looking to collect about 8,500 signatures. There are hundreds of volunteers ready to get out and start collecting signatures, we will be hosting signature parties as well, so it should be pretty simple to gather the required signatures."

The video has about a minute of Beall being served and his reaction, then you have video of him and Councilwoman Figueroa as the process server reads a statement and then the next speaker talks specifics about Dove Canyon Plaza. I'm not sure how to interpret Bealls face here, Figueroa was stone faced through the proceeding, but Beall alternated between glaring and grinning and looking around. I can imagine it was uncomfortable to him to be in that position to hear that so many people in your city dislike you and want you gone. It sounds like things are going to continue to get worse for Beall as I understand an FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) complaint was recently filed against him, which I'm trying to get a copy right now and will report on.

In my opinion, it's probably time for Beall to just resign because my sources are telling me there is a mountain of stuff coming down the pike against him, apparently everyone has finally had enough.