It's not surprising that the effort to recall Cobb school board member John Crooks fell short. It was a long shot from the start. But it did accomplish several things.

First, as Crooks said after dodging the bullet, "it is a lesson in how paramount a fair and open process is in earning the public's trust, even in matters that may divide our community." Although he should have said "especially in matters that may divide," etc., he got the point.

Crooks faced the recall move for giving constituents the back of his hand by ignoring advance notice as required by law for a hotly contested proposal to erect a cell tower at Eastvalley Elementary last July. He said he put the item on the school board agenda at the last minute to avoid "a circus."

Second, the recall campaign won a court decision that Crooks' conduct amounted to intent to mislead the public and constituted "a justifiable ground for recall."

Third, the effort undoubtedly precluded Crooks from seeking another term even though he has said he never intended to do so. Without the recall, he might well have decided to run again, but now he will go off the board after this year's election.

The effort under the leadership of parent Carrie Nicholas-Welkis also energized a cadre of concerned voters that should have a positive effect on the election. That's especially true since the leader's husband, chiropractor Rick Welkis, is running for the Post 6 seat in the Democratic primary.

How many signatures were obtained, Nicholas-Welkis did not say. But the failure of the recall no doubt has a lot to do with Georgia's tough recall law.

Nicholas-Welkis and her supporters needed to get a whopping 30 percent of eligible voters in Post 6 to sign a recall petition. That was a daunting 13,856 signatures - only 950 short of the 14,086 votes Crooks received in winning the election in 2006. And the required number of signatures had to be obtained within 45 days - a rate of 308 per day. It would have taken an army of several hundred volunteers to come close.

The extreme irony is that if enough signatures had been obtained, only a bare majority of the votes cast would have unseated Crooks immediately, never mind 30 percent of the electorate voting.

Clearly, the recall law was written by incumbents to protect incumbents. Georgia's 30 percent signature requirement is among the toughest of 18 states permitting recalls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Incidentally, for statewide offices Georgia law requires signatures of only 15 percent of eligible voters.

In California where a half-dozen efforts are underway to recall school board members in various districts, 20 percent of registered voters is required. In Michigan, a hotbed of school board recall campaigns, the signature requirement is 25 percent of votes cast in the last election, far better than Georgia's prohibitive 30 percent.

So where are our legislative leaders on fixing this law?

dmckee9613@aol.com