The minor movement to recall Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood built little momentum before a judge formally ended the effort on Dec. 16.
Political consultant Doug Guetzloe still could take his beef with the mayor to appeals court. Or he could start anew on the petition process that gathered 4,000 signatures in an attempt to force a recall vote. Guetzloe and the Ax the Tax political-action committee launched that drive in anger after Hood's 11th-hour pitch briefly revived a near-lifeless light-rail line on Sept. 27, to the astonishment even of city council members who reluctantly went along. (That last-ditch plan -- for a line linking downtown with the Belz outlet mall on International Drive -- has since gone under.)
One who hopes to see the recall drive evaporate is Bruce Gordy, Hood's main challenger in the March mayoral election.
Gordy is no fan of Hood's practice of playing things close to the vest; he says her tactics on the light-rail vote encapsulate his frustrations and directly catapulted the College Park councilman into the race against her. But now that he has positioned himself as an alternative, Gordy on Dec. 20 dispatched a letter to Guetzloe asking him to back off. The gist of that missive: Let the mayoral election be a referendum on Hood.
Left unsaid, of course, was that Gordy would be the real beneficiary of any protest vote.