Recall effort against Seaside city councilman aimed at harming mayoral chances

SEASIDE, Calif. (KION) Seaside Residents United, the group that initiated a recall campaign against Seaside City Councilman Jon Wizard, announced on Friday it has suspended the effort.

"Given that Council Member Jon Wizard’s efforts to defund the police failed and given the failure of his effort to defeat our mayor, as of today, Friday, November 13, 2020, the recall effort has been suspended," said the group in a press release statement through email.

The leader of the recall effort, Greater Victory Temple Pastor Ronald Britt, told KION point blank that he actually had no intention of actually recalling Jon Wizard from the city council. He says he "was not trying to destroy" Wizard, but rather trying to prevent him from becoming the new mayor.

"The strategy was to recall him and make him just stressed out the whole time and put it in front of him so that he would not be the mayor," said Pastor Britt.

The recall effort, he says, was simply a distraction.

"Let's just go for it," Britt recalls. "Just make him upset and make him say crazy things and then people would not vote for him as the mayor. I was never really trying to take his seat."

Britt seemingly bragged about how they did not put that much effort into the recall: they did not knock on doors or hold rallies. They did not even get the number of signatures they needed to put the question on the ballot, nor did they submit the ones they had.

The City of Seaside confirmed with KION on Friday that not one signature was turned in. Britt says they got close, but decided to pull back after they saw Wizard was not likely going to win the mayor's race when results came out on Election Day.

"We could've gotten that but I refused to go that route. I'm not trying to destroy Jon Wizard. I look forward to working with him over the next two years with the city," said Britt.

This whole ordeal started after Wizard called for a portion of Seaside's police budget to be taken and used for community service programs, which critics saw as an effort to "Defund the Police."

Wizard believes more funding for such programs would actually prevent more crime, but his proposal to use a million dollars from the police budget failed in city council.

Wizard tells KION he has always believed the recall effort was a smear campaign and that it apparently worked this time. As for Pastor Britt, who according to his church website served 23 years as a deputy sheriff with the Santa Clara County Department of Corrections, it was mission accomplished.

When it comes to whether the current mayor Ian Oglesby's campaign or any other councilmembers were involved in the recall effort, Britt unequivocally denies involvement from any of them.

KION reached out to the mayor and the rest of the council for comment Friday night, but did not hear back in time for broadcast.