Past deadline for all but write-in candidates in Sonoma County District Attorney recall election

Sonoma County voters on Sept. 14 are set to determine in a recall election whether District Attorney Jill Ravitch stays in her post, but it remains unclear who might succeed the veteran prosecutor if she is removed from office.

Not a single person submitted paperwork by the 5 p.m. deadline Thursday for alternative candidates in the event of a successful recall, Sonoma County Registrar of Voters Deva Proto said Friday.

Anyone who might be interested in overseeing the team of attorneys and staff who handle criminal prosecutions in the county still has until 14 days before the election to register their interest in serving as a write-in candidate, Proto said.

Only those who are registered voters and attorneys admitted to practice before the state Supreme Court qualify.

If voters were to remove Ravitch, the top vote getter among any write-in candidates would be seated as her successor, Proto said.

If there are no write-ins, and Ravitch is recalled by a majority of voters, the Board of Supervisors would be forced to appoint a replacement, Chief Deputy County Counsel Debbie Latham said.

All five supervisors are listed among those who oppose the recall. They have lined up behind the campaign supporting Ravitch and against the recall effort launched by wealthy local developer Bill Gallaher.

Ravitch’s supporters have called the election a “revenge recall.”

Gallaher is chief executive officer of Windsor-based Gallaher Homes and founder of Poppy Bank and Oakmont Senior Living.

He launched his recall campaign less than two months after an Oakmont Senior Living affiliate paid $500,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by local and state prosecutors over the abandonment of frail, elderly residents in two of its Santa Rosa senior homes during the 2017 Tubbs fire.

Gallaher, in written statements, said he initiated the recall effort to assure “steady, competent public safety in our county.” He has declined to be interviewed.

The petition circulated to get the recall on the ballot cited “issues of inequality, injustice and fire safety failure,” as well as failure to “to pursue charges against large corporations that harm and pollute our community.”

Ravitch, who has rejected those claims and who announced last year she would retire when her term is up next year, has described the recall as “one man’s vendetta against me for doing the job I was supposed to do.”

“It’s a revenge campaign,” she said in May, when the Board of Supervisors fixed the date for the election. “Mr. Gallaher seems hell-bent on getting me out of office.”

Early polling data obtained in April by Ravitch supporters and their Stop the Recall campaign indicates strong opposition to an election that could cost county taxpayers up to $900,000.

The cost is less now that the recall election for Gov. Gavin Newsom will take place the same day, according to Proto, who did not have a revised estimate this week.

Veteran Sonoma County political consultant Terry Price, who is chairing the Voters Opposed to Recalling District Attorney Jill Ravitch campaign, said the having a recall without someone trying to win election to the post was “very unusual.”

He said it reflects antipathy both for the recall and for the idea of “throwing themselves in with Gallaher.”

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, the board chairwoman, said she hoped she and her colleagues would not be put in position to appoint a successor to Ravitch.

“I think that we just want to be in a position where voters and democracy prevails, and so it would certainly be awkward to be placed into a situation where were appointing a D.A.,” she said.

She added that with no one eager to replace Ravitch, “this feels like a substantial waste of taxpayers’ dollars at this point. I’m guessing it will be the better part of $1 million dollars, and I can think of a million other ways that that money would be better spent.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.