5 File Recall Notice for R.H. Estates Councilman

Veteran Rolling Hills Estates City Councilman Jerome Belsky is the target of a recall attempt by five residents, including a former councilman, who assert that he is “progressively destroying the respect and harmony” between city government and residents.

The five have filed a legal notice with the city of their intent to circulate recall petitions.

Belsky filed a reply this week, saying he has “continuously volunteered time and energy to the city” during four years on the Planning Commission and 12 on the council. He said he has directed his attorney to file a libel suit against the recall proponents because of statements made in their notice.

Alexander M. Shemet, who was on the council from 1966 to 1974, said in an interview that he joined the recall effort because Belsky “is an abrupt sort of individual” who dominates the council.

“The group is concerned primarily that people do not get a chance to speak clearly to the council,” he said. “They feel insulted and demeaned. It has been going on for several years.”

Other recall proponents are Paul Edward Bradley Sr., Sharon Dunfee, Joyce E. Barbour and C. Elaine McNulty, according to the notice.

Belsky, in an interview, said he does not know those who want to recall him or why they have made him a target. He denied that any of the five asked him to resign, so a recall would not be necessary, as the notice states.

Among assertions in the group’s legal notice are that Belsky has a business arrangement in Rolling Hills Estates with two other council members that “has tainted” the council’s image and raised possible conflicts of interest; that he led council attacks on “every citizen-presented alternative” to the school district’s sale of the Dapplegray Intermediate School site for development, and that he “tried to remove the one councilman who has criticized and disagreed with him.”

In response, Belsky said he and Councilman Hugh Muller are among several owners of a Long Beach business that has no connection to the city; that he supported an unsuccessful effort to preserve some of the Dapplegray site, and that he did not try to remove a councilman but did not support Councilman Peter M. Weber’s successful reelection bid last November.

After recall petitions begin circulating, the proponents have 90 days to collect about 1,400 signatures, or 25% of the registered voters, needed for a recall election. Belsky’s four-year term expires in November, 1989.