Elliott Brainard, Jeanette Smith and Sam Stroffe-Rains signed a motion of intent to recall Nye County District 5 Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos Wednesday.

Petition organizers will have 90 days to collect signatures from one-fourth of the district five residents who voted in the Nov. 7 election, or 670 signatures.

The Committee to Recall Peter Liakopoulos placed an ad in today's Pahrump Valley Times, stating they would have a presence at the Pahrump Fall Festival this weekend. Activist Harley Kulkin later admitted having actually paid for the ad.

The advertisement refers to special deals, intimidation and self-serving interestson the commissioner's part.

Stroffe-Rains wouldn't get into specifics about why she signed the intent to recall the commissioner, saying she's a private person.

"I'm not real happy with the way he's performed his duties," she said.

"We vote people into office hoping that they will do good things for our community. When someone doesn't really live up to that it truly behooves us to say, hey, wait a minute. You're not doing a good job."

She compared it to getting rid of an employee who isn't doing a good job at work.

Brainard and Smith didn't respond to a request for comment by press time.

Smith ran for sheriff and finished last in the Aug. 15, 2006, primary. She is the wife of Robert Smith, who has a lawsuit against Nye County since he was zapped with a Taser by sheriff's deputies.

Liakopoulos charged television talk show critic and former political candidate Harley Kulkin was behind the recall. Liakopoulos said Kulkin told him at the Veteran's Day parade last year he would mount a recall against him.

"I'm involved, but I obviously am not the only person involved with it because I can't even sign the petition. I support the petition and at my fall festival booth I will have the recall petition there. And of course, we need 670 signatures I believe we will get quite easily," Kulkin said.

"Mr. Liakopoulos thinks everything is cloak and dagger and I'm more than happy to say I will be involved in the recall. I feel very strongly this isn't just about Mr. Liakopoulos. It's about the past commissioners we've had for years and years."

Kulkin denied saying on TV he sought to recall Liakopoulos and denied making the remarks at the Veteran's Day parade.

"There are many people behind this effort who want it to succeed, and they will go door to door to get the signatures," Kulkin said.

Liakopoulos said Brainard, another co-signer, worked on the campaign of Pat Garlough, who ran unsuccessfully against him in the primary. Kulkin questioned what that had to do with the recall.

Liakopoulos answered two ethics complaints this year and has also been involved in a controversy over the veteran's memorial project.

He said the first ethics complaint filed against him came from Steve Johnson, a business partner of Dan Schinhofen, who lost to Liakopoulos in the general election.

Johnson alleged Liakopoulos had a conflict of interest, for voting to reduce the hours of Pahrump Medical Center and approve the chip-sealing of Higley Road. Both complaints said the votes were related to his television programs on KPVM-TV.

"I want to know what's self-serving because so far I've been cleared on everything," the commissioner said.

Liakopoulos noted the State Ethics Board cleared him of any wrongdoing in 14 minutes when Kulkin re-filed the same ethics complaint over the paving of Higley Road.

"For two months he (Kulkin) got on his show and said Commissioner Liakopoulos will not complete a year in office," Liakopoulos said. Kulkin denied making those statements.

When it comes to intimidation, Liakopoulos said it was Kulkin who jumped up and talked about his lawyer when he was turned down on a parceling request.

"This is nothing more than sour grapes from the last election because I beat Garlough in the primary, I beat Schinhofen in the general, and let us not forget it was at the Veteran's Day parade last year before I took office that they told me they were going to recall me," Liakopoulos said.

Kulkin mounted an unsuccessful recall campaign against former Nye County Commissioner Cameron McRae in 2000.

The last time a recall petition was successful in Nye County was when former Public Administrator Robert "Red" Dyer was recalled in January 2000. Dyer was facing numerous criminal charges at the time.

A notice of intent to recall Nye County Commission Chairman Gary Hollis was filed last October by local gadfly Jim Petell and two others, but the petitions were never even turned in to the county clerk's office.