To the editor,

Dianne Widdop’s detractors have finally garnered enough signatures for a vote to unseat the elected mayor of Gearhart. The chief recall petitioner, and the shadowy figure(s) he represents, have never made their motivations clear, since their rhetoric relies not on fact, but on innuendo. We’re not to know, for example, the nature of Dianne Widdop’s alleged “retaliation” against the petitioners, or what powers she could possibly use to cause such injury.

Mayor Widdop herself is no stranger to carrying petitions door-to-door in Gearhart. Just a few years back, she used the referendum process to make the City Council reverse its annexation of so-called “gated communities,” which had been outlawed in our zoning ordinance. That action was typical of her courageous stands over the past 20 years in support of the Gearhart comprehensive plan and its implementing ordinances.

A generation ago, when we first set our signatures to the comprehensive plan, we understood it to be the city’s covenant with the community, and the basis of all its laws, from land use to public safety. More than a vague statement of “collective standards and values,” it’s a very specific document, reaffirmed by the people’s representatives over the past four decades, that defines the semi-rural, low-density residential character of Gearhart.

The plan lists specific goals and guidelines for the preservation of Gearhart’s unique environment and quality of life, and restricts commercial activity to the needs of the resident population. Widdop’s allegiance to that plan has been the hallmark of her political career. This is, and must be, the basis of our trust in her leadership: We know she will support the comprehensive plan, no matter how loudly or (in the present case) abusively the special interests may protest.

Gearhart must not be forced to abandon that trust. We must not allow the community to be poisoned and bullied by a mini-faction’s unfounded rumors and allegations. We urge all citizens, and especially those who were hoodwinked into signing the recall petition, to vote no on the recall.

As for that mini-faction’s spokesman on the City Council, we trust that, when the dust has settled, he will remember the voices of his better angels who had urged him to resign from the council (“Jesse asks Gearhart mayor to bow out,” The Daily Astorian, Jan. 8). He chose instead to ask for Widdop’s resignation, ironically alleging that it was Mayor Widdop, and not in fact his own partisans, who were “splitting the community apart” — and are now burdening the city with the nearly $6,000 cost of a recall election.

Bill Berg

Kent Smith

Gearhart