Beaty Criticizes and Abstains from Voting on Recall Amendment

“County Commissioner Ron Beaty Severely Criticizes and Slams Charter Recall Amendment and Ordinance”

CAPE COD, MA: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - Barnstable County Commissioner Ron Beaty issued the following public statement today:

Relative to the Charter Recall Amendment Ordinance recently passed by the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates at their September 2, 2020 meeting, and forwarded to the Board of Regional Commissioners for approval at our 10:00 AM meeting today, I formally abstained from voting on the matter in question for the following reasons:

• As presently drafted, the recall amendment, and process employed to formulate it are seriously flawed, defective and clearly politically motivated and directed at me in retaliation for exercising my Constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech during my current tenure as an elected public official. The Charter Review Committee itself was in fact the full Assembly of Delegates which questionably appointed itself to that role instead of a separate and objective public body.

• The Charter Recall Amendment inappropriately and unjustifiability excludes the Assembly of Delegates from being subject to the Recall Provision Process.

• The allowable “reasons “ to initiate a recall process under Section 3. Grounds for Recall are excessively vague, subjective and openly invite abuse of said process by politically motivated and unscrupulous individuals and/or groups.

• If a County Commissioner is recalled via the proposed process, then his or her replacement should be elected by the voters, not appointed by the Assembly of Delegates as proposed within said ordinance. This section provides additional motivation for some members of the Assembly to abuse the process in order to install a County Commissioner more pliable and subject to their whims and political control.

• The signature threshold for both an affidavit and petition are not sufficiently stringent enough as compared to the tens of thousands of votes cast for a County Commissioner to successfully win an election and take public office.

If the aforementioned Charter Recall Amendment and ordinance defects could be appropriately corrected and resolved, and if the process could actually be taken seriously for the good of the community instead of for politically motivated reasons targeting me in particular, then I would consider supporting such a revamped, transparent and well intentioned Charter Recall Amendment.