Petitions to recall six Waldport council members may have enough signatures to force election

By GARRET JAROS/Lincoln Chronicle

WALDPORT – The second round of petitions to recall all six Waldport city councilors were submitted to the city Monday with the required number of signatures.

Chief petitioner Tony Thimakis delivered the petitions and told the city clerk that 230 to 240 signatures had been gathered for each of the councilors, which if verified by the city and the county, would meet the threshold of 192 signatures required for each councilor.

The number of required signatures is set by the Oregon Secretary of State based on the calculation of 15 percent of the 1,276 city residents who voted in the last election for governor.

The petitions were submitted on deadline after recall backers had 90 days to collect signatures.

Lincoln County Clerk Amy Southwell now has 30 days to verify the signatures. She will then notify the Waldport city recorder of the results, who in turn will notify Thimakis and council members.

Council members — Greg Dunn, Susan Woodruff, Rick Booth, Jayme Morris, Michelle Severson and Jerry Townsend — would then have five business days to resign or submit a statement of why they should not be removed from council. If the verification threshold is met for some council members and not others, only those where the threshold has been met would face the recall election.

If a councilor does not resign within the five days after the petition qualifies for the ballot, the special recall election must be held no later than 35 days following the close of the five-day window, according to the Oregon Secretary of State.

The election’s cost to the city of Waldport is estimated between $3,600 and $5,000 depending on the county’s final expenses.

The petitioners’ first effort failed last November after it was determined that while enough valid signatures had been gathered, they violated state law by writing in the addresses for some who signed.

What petitions claim

The latest petitions mirror claims from the first effort. They say councilors voted in unison “to oust our lawfully elected mayor, defying the voters choice.”

The council voted 6-0 on April 3 to remove Mayor Heide Lambert for violating the city’s charter for improperly directing city employees. A judge ordered the mayor reinstated in May after Lambert asked for a court review of the council’s action and the council quickly complied.

The petitions also say councilors allowed city manager Dann Cutter to speak on their behalf in its intention to fight the district attorney’s decision not to file criminal charges against the mayor for returning to her seat April 10 when she was removed and arrested by a sheriff’s deputy. The petitions also accuse councilors of keeping Lambert from responding to repeated public statements at meetings, dismissing without investigation multiple complaints against Cutter while also failing to supervise him, resulting in fiscal mismanagement that included four years of delinquent city audits and impeding access to public records.

In conclusion, the petition referenced the city manager’s handling of issues surrounding the Waldport Beachcomber Days organization. It states councilors “condoned the city manager’s attempts to cause reputational and fiscal injury to residents and groups including slanderous statements, calling employers and filing complaints with various agencies.”

Between April 2025 and January, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission received 50 complaints, nearly all against Waldport councilors and Cutter and nearly all from people with ties to Beachcombers, including Thimakis. The vast majority of those complaints were dismissed for falling outside the commission’s jurisdiction, according to the commission’s compliance and enforcement coordinator. Some resulted in councilors in November receiving a routine letter of education after admitting a technical violation of public meeting laws.

A number of new complaints have been made since Jan. 1, according to ethics commission officials, but are confidential while under preliminary review.

• Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at [email protected]