Yolanda Teneyuque and John Martinez recall, Greenfield, California (2012)

Yolanda Teneyuque

A vote about whether to recall Yolanda Teneyuque and John Martinez from their positions as elected officials of the City of Greenfield, California in Monterey County will take place on June 5th, 2012. The recall effort was launched in July 2011. Greenfield's mayor, John Huerta, Jr. is the target of a separate recall effort.

Recall supporters

The recall effort is supported by a group called "Reunify Greenfield". "Reunify Greenfield" is spearheading the recalls, and is also working on a referendum to overturn a vote by the city council to merge Greenfield's police department with the Soledad Police Department for a year. If the two police departments are merged, it is thought to be likely that Soledad's police chief Eric Sills would take on the top leadership role in the merged department, and that current Greenfield Police Chief Joe Grebmeier would be out in the cold.

The Soledad City Council voted 5-0 to enter into an agreement that would merge the two police departments. The Greenfield City Council approved the police merger by a 3-2 vote. The merger has been put on hold after Greenfield residents collected hundreds of signatures asking for the merger to be put up to a public vote. Referendum supporters submitted 550 signatures, according to Greenfield's interim City Manager Brent Slama. 400 valid signatures are required. If the signatures are certified, the police merger referendum could be put on a regular or special election ballot.

Avelina Torres is a leader of "Reunify Greenfield" and a key supporter of Grebmeier.

Torres attended a city council meeting in early summer 2011. Some city council members discussed Grebmeier, and Torres said: "...they were making awful accusations. I was shocked. I couldn't believe people could go and just say anything they wanted, making up lies and getting away with it." Torres identified Yolanda Teneyuque and John Martinez as the key leaders in the effort to get rid of Grebmeier, and that is why Torres is targeting Teneyuque and Martinez for recall: "What these two council members have done is (mount) a personal vendetta. Had our police chief done something wrong, we would be the first in line to ask for him to leave."

Grebemeir has come under criticism from some quarters because when he took over the department, he initiated meetings to teach indigenous migrants, primarily Oaxacans, about U.S. laws. The meetings were ended in 2010 under pressure from the city council.

John Martinez

Grebmeier was placed on paid administrative leave in September for undisclosed reasons. He remained on leave until announcing his retirement, effective April 13th, 2012.

Path to the ballot

978 signatures of registered Greenfield voters needed to be collected for each recall target in a 60-day window from the time that the petition text is approved, in order for the recall effort to succeed in forcing a vote. In November 2011, recall supporters submitted 1,231 signatures to recall Teneyuque and 1,227 to recall Martinez. If enough signatures are validated, the city council will call for a recall election within 88 to 125 days.

In December 2011, 1,046 signatures turned in for Martinez were validated while 1,055 signatures submitted on the Teneyuque recall petition were validated. The City Council had 14 days to schedule a recall election to take place within 88 to 125 days. The recall election was scheduled for June 5th, 2012.

Agapito Vazquez and James Kilgore will seek to fill Tenyuque's seat, in the event that she is recalled. Drew Tipton and Yvette Gonzalez will seek Martinz's seat if he is recalled.

See also

• Recall campaigns in California
• City council recalls
• Monterey County

External links

Wikipedia has an article on:

Greenfield, CA

• Website of the City of Greenfield