“Ask not what your petition can do for you, ask what you can do for your petition,” Chairman of the Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price recall petition Mike O’Connor said yesterday.

The deadline to get the petition to the parish registrar’s office is next Thursday which has O’Connor making last ditch efforts to acquire as many signatures possible.

“We don’t have any numbers yet but we know we don’t have enough,” O’Connor said. O’Connor initiated the recall effort last fall when Price was accused in a Legislative Auditor’s report, among other things, of spending thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on personal outings. Price was also involved with another documented incident of drinking while apparently intoxicated on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

Citizens rallied after the events and demanded Price to step down from office. When Price refused to step down, O’Connor began the recall petition to have Price ousted from the mayor’s office.

But having an elected official recalled is proving to be a difficult task.

“People need to get off their butts and show some freaking initiative,” O’Connor said, visibly angered by the lack of support he’s seen from Mandeville residents.

According to the Secretary of State’s Office, nearly 2,400 signatures, or 33.3 percent of the city’s registered voters, are needed when O’Connor submits the petition to the registrar’s office.

There, the signatures will be hand-counted and verified. If enough signatures are on the petition, the registrar sends it to the Secretary of State’s and the Governor’s Office where Gov. Bobby Jindal would call a special election for residents to vote on whether Price stays or goes. If ousted, another special election would be called to fill his seat, which he can run for again.

O’Connor said residents are scared to be seen signing the petition so he’s made it easier for them by providing the document on his Web site, www.recalleddie.com. O’Connor said people can download the petition, fill it out and return it to O’Connor either by hand delivery or mail before next Thursday at 634 Carroll St. Mandeville, LA, 70048.

“There’s no excuse now for people not to sign it when they can do it in their own home,” he said.