MEETING FOR RECALL DRAWS SMALL TURNOUT

Only six people turned out last week for a meeting called by Lynnette Berry for the purpose of organizing a recall of Cape Girardeau City Council members.

Three of the six people in attendance said they were opposed to the recall effort, including two who said they "were just there to observe."

Berry announced at a Dec. 7 city council meeting that she intended to start recall petitions on four council members David Limbaugh, Al Spradling III, Mary Wulfers and Melvin Kasten.

At the meeting Thursday held at the Cape Girardeau Public Library she agreed to expand the effort and start recall petitions on the remaining councilmen: Doug Richards, Melvin Gateley and Gene Rhodes.

Julie Dale, a former deputy city clerk for Cape Girardeau, was one of those at the meeting. She said the issue of including Mayor Rhodes in the recall effort was a controversial one.

She said Berry told those at the meeting that her primary motivation was to remove the present council so that a ward election measure approved by voters in November can be implemented prior to the next scheduled council election in 1994.

In order to recall the council, petitions must be circulated on each of the members. For those petitions that secure the signatures of at least 10 percent of the city's registered voters, the recall would be placed on the ballot for a city-wide vote.

Dale said she doesn't support the recall effort.

"The reason I went is that I'm interested in it I'm against it," she said. "I worked with the council, and I really feel like the ones they're really targeting tried to do a good job and have done a good job.

"I was curious who would show up and how many people really felt the way Lynnette Berry did."

A reporter was unable Saturday to reach Berry at her home.

Others in attendance included Scott Toll, who said Saturday he was there as an "observer" only, and Van Marlin, who refused to comment on the meeting.

Dale said the only people at the meeting that supported Berry's recall were Debra Willis, an officer in the Cape Girardeau chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Andre Twitty, a self-described "black activist."