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Teliha Draheim
Recalling Fairfax Mayor & Vice Mayor—The Unreported Story
On March 6, 2025, a frontpage article appeared in the Marin IJ with breaking news about a citizen-initiated petition to recall two members of the Fairfax Town Council, Mayor Lisel Blash and Vice Mayor, Stephanie Hellman.
The reporter provided an accurate account what of what occurred at the March 5, 2025 Town Council meeting. However, the political manipulation by a sitting council member that occurred behind the scenes, prior to the meeting, is a much more interesting story.
News of the upcoming recall notices prompted sitting council member Barbara Coler to send a highly politicized email to a Fairfax resident, urging them to fight the recall. An email chain, which arrived in my inbox, began with her letter.
In it she stated:
“If it qualifies, a recall election would be held Nov 2025. (Unlike a State recall like Governor Newsom's, they cannot also run other folks for the seats, they would have to wait for Nov 2026) - and we'd have to likely appoint to fill one or both seats if a recall was successful, and then who knows what type of people would get in.
I implore you to get your listserv people on board to fight this! With Stephanie, Lisel and I on the Council we are able to ensure the Council moves in a positive direction, Frank and Mike have draconian ideas (however Mike has been more reasonable). If a recall were to be successful, I expect these folks would put up some people who many in Fairfax would not be happy with.”
It’s hard to ignore this spreading of negative propaganda achieved through political manipulation. Barbara was reelected to the Council by a slim margin. She is referring to other council members who were elected by an overwhelming majority of popular votes in the November 2024 election. The imaginary “draconian ideas” to which Barbara refers, may be the reasons these new leaders were elected.
The listserv email chain forwarded to me contained exaggerated and false accounts about new council members, Frank Egger and Mike Ghiringhelli, and derogatory statements about the citizens fighting to recall Hellman and Blash. The emails refer to the citizen-initiated recall effort as “a tactic right out of the MAGA playbook” and encourage residents to oppose the recall and to tell friends and neighbors to do the same.
The emails falsely typecast council members Egger and Ghiringhelli as conspiracy theorists, supportive of MAGA tactics. The residents of Fairfax find these comments false and deeply offensive.
According to resident Jody Tims, who was quoted in the Marin IJ article, “Recalls should be reserved for electeds who are not doing their job or acting negligently, not just because one doesn’t like their particular politics.”
“That is clearly not the case here,” states resident Michael Rosenthal in the article. “This is a tactic right out of the MAGA playbook — if you don’t like the results of an election, try to subvert them.”
Unsurprisingly, a handful of public speakers at the March 5 town council meeting mimicked the wording and falsehoods set forth in the email chain. It was noted by other citizens that most of the speakers opposing the recall rarely attended town council meetings or followed town politics. They appear to have been political shills summoned by council member Barbara Coler.
The town members actively supporting the recall were surprisingly silent. I later learned this was intentional. Twice before, recall petitions have been rejected for technical errors as insignificant as someone’s signature extending beyond the signature “box”. The recallers wanted to be sure this effort went forward before they attracted more attention. So, the Marin IJ accurately reported the event, but the reporting was not representative of the strong support this recall has in the community.
Resident Michael Mackintosh stated,
“Although recall is harsh, and sometimes maybe is a wakeup call, an opportunity to change things, what it really says is that a group of people feel that they have not been represented.”
I agree with this assessment. In order for a community or a nation to hold together, there has to be a story that most everyone agrees on. When the story falls apart, and isn’t replaced by another one, fragmentation occurs.
Stories give members of a group an imaginary, unifying thing they can believe in. To clarify, this imaginary thing is not necessarily false, but it is a thing of the imagination. It's an invention that we believe in because it's convenient.
What the citizens of Fairfax agree on is not a belief, but a disbelief. What is shared is an absence of belief, a disenchantment from believing in a system and elected officials who do not represent them. They feel betrayed by the actions of prior town council members and voted for people whom they believed would write a different story.
If you’re free, you aren’t trapped in a story about us vs. them. If you’re free you live in a world where you make choices that allow you to flourish, and you recognize that your flourishing is consistent with the flourishing of other people. That’s what the citizens of Fairfax believe is being challenged and why they have organized a third time to initiate a recall of two members of the Fairfax Town Council.
Democracy requires one to be active. This is not about a government that is for or against freedom. This is about government that allows people to be free.
Anger is an emotion that alerts us to injustice, just as fear is an emotion that alerts us to danger. When the people of Fairfax organized and realized that the town council members in question were sabotaging them, it made them angry. Barbara Coler’s behind-the-scenes campaign is a timely example of the kind of corrupt manipulation that occurs in Fairfax.
When “truth” becomes whatever those in power say it is, it is no longer truth. It becomes a symbol that marks your belonging to a particular group or agreement with the person saying it.
When you enter a world where truth is a subset of power, it basically means that you can no longer have a democratic debate.
When conversations are no longer based on reality, they become a different kind of conversation based on anger or emotion or people expressing themselves in order to confirm their identities or to attack someone else’s identity. At this point you’re no longer discussing road repair or removing homeless encampments; you’ve engaged in a different kind of politics.
Those being recalled will likely gain the endorsements and financial support of organizations with which they are involved. But these organizations are not representative of the people living in Fairfax. This is a citizen-initiated recall because Fairfax citizens do not feel fairly represented.
Fairfax desires a government which creates conditions allowing residents to live safely and freely as Fairfaxians. 130 signatures supporting the recall (70 more than needed) were collected in 1 ½ days.
Blash and Hellman were served on March 5, 2025. The signatures were “accepted” by the town attorney, Janet Coleson. The “Committee to Recall Vice Mayor Stephanie Hellman and Mayor Blash” now awaits petition approvals by the CA Attorney General.
This time, the Committee has reorganized with help from the attorney who was instrumental in the successful 2024 recall of Oakland Mayor, Sheng Thao, and Alameda District Attorney, Pamela Price, on corruption charges.
To learn more visit: www.recallfairfax.com