We don’t need a never-ending election season

Respect the will of the voters.

If Crescent City Councilwoman Donna Westfall could bring herself to do that, she’d quit disrupting the city government with absurd theatrics.

Let’s see, who is Westfall proposing to kick out of office this week? Charles Slert and Kathryn Murray? Aren’t those the two people who were elected to the City Council along with Westfall last November?

You remember that election. There were nine candidates for three open seats, so control of the five-member Council hung in the balance. Westfall ran as part of a three-candidate slate that promised to shake up City Hall after its shaky performance in expanding the sewage treatment plant without knowing how to pay for it, then raising monthly sewer fees dramatically without a vote of the general public.

Westfall, along with fellow shake-up candidates Jody Mangum and Linda Sutter, levied plenty of legitimate criticism during the campaign. But they also came across as one-issue candidates — and that one issue had basically already been decided.

If voters had wanted to continue wallowing in the sewer plant issue, they would have elected all three. Instead, they chose a more moderate course, electing potential consensus-builders Slert and Murray along with Westfall.

This decision of the electorate has obviously never sat well with Westfall, who had been in office for all of four months the first time she launched a recall effort, targeting Murray, Mayor Kelly Schellong and City Clerk Dianne Nickerson. That attempt was eventually dropped, but now Westfall wants to oust Murray and Slert, labeling the latter as one of the “good ol’ boys” and “not a man of the people.”

In Westfall’s view, colleagues who disagree with her or have different priorities for city government should be immediately removed from office. Not challenged in a regularly scheduled election, but targeted in ongoing recall efforts that could have the effect of making the politics-charged election season permanent.

This type of lashing out is apparently more satisfying to her than working with her properly elected colleagues on the issues at hand, work that requires patience, diligence and yes, consensus-building. It takes a true leader to endure the drudgery and frustration inherent in effecting change in public policy.

The saddest aspect of this debacle is that Westfall is letting down the very people who elected her, some of whom still steadfastly support her. They don’t trust City Hall, and they chose her to bring their views to the Council. She should be casting a skeptical eye on financial issues, whether they involve the ongoing sewer plant expansion or other operations of the cash-strapped city.

Save the recall campaigns for extraordinary misdeeds. Respect the will of the voters, as expressed at the last proper election.

There’s another City Council election next year, by the way — soon enough for another round of politicking. In the meantime, there’s real work to be done.