LAKESIDE - Three Lakeside city councilors, including the city's mayor, are standing on shaky ground if a public forum held Monday night is any indication of this tiny town's political pulse.

After the two-hour-long meeting, Mayor Ed Gowan, who is targeted in an Aug. 3 recall election for spearheading a move to create the city's first-ever tax base, sat on the back of his pickup truck outside the Lakeside Lion's Club, appearing weary.

“I feel like I've been kicked and stabbed,” he said, after an evening spent standing before a mostly angry and accusatory crowd of 100 residents.

Gowan, who is up for re-election in November, sponsored the forum to defend the tax plan and hoped to simultaneously ward off the recall that also targets councilors Julie Anderson and Don Lund.

For years, city councilors have attempted - but never succeeded - to create a tax base to make improvements to the city.

Facing routine complaints from residents, Gowan wants to improve street conditions, hire more city staff to take on more duties in the wake of a building boom, along with increasing the police and emergency response presence in the town.

But that takes money.

About three weeks ago, the Concerned Taxpayers of Lakeside garnered enough signatures to bring about the recall. Suzan Marcy, the chief petitioner of the recall, and others believed the officials favored the tax plan, which also includes consolidating with the Lakeside Water District. The tax and consolidation plan would establish a brand new city tax rate of $2.60 per $1,000 of assessed property value. At present, the Water District has a tax rate of 70 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.

The manner in which Gowan handled the consolidation idea appears to have fanned the recall flames.

Opponents believe the mayor had already made up his mind to absorb the Water District - without first working with the water board.

“I think this whole thing can really come down to one thing - take over,” said Dennis Sargent, a member of the water board who was at Monday's meting. “Everything I have heard is that the city is going to take over the water district - not that the city is going to work with the Water District and consolidate.”

Gowan disagreed, saying Monday he had personally invited water board members to the May 18 meeting when the idea was made public.

No one from the water board showed up, Gowan said.

Over the course of the night, a handful of attendees and officials traded barbs, accusations and the facts as they saw them.

Rarely, if ever, did the two sides agree.

The mistrust appears to have grown from miscommunication, or lies, depending on which side of the fence Monday's speakers were.

Orville Nelson, a member of the water board, said official city meeting minutes indicate Gowan expressed he did not care whether the water board would go along with the consolidation idea or not.

As the recall campaign heated up last month, Gowan did take action, circulating a petition to consolidate the districts. However, Nelson said Gowan misstepped when he began to circulate the consolidation petition weeks before the May meeting - a scenario that Gowan flatly denied.

Gowan went on the offensive, accusing the water board of overtaxing its taxpayers for bonded debt, even though the district has more than $500,000 in a water board fund. Gowan wanted to know why the district was not paying off the bond early, when his research showed there is no penalty for an early payoff.

Nelson said there was a prepayment penalty, and that the Water District planned to pay off the bond after the payoff penalty expired in 2011 - 19 years before it was due.

Audience members continued to question who was right on that matter throughout the night.

Both Nelson and Tim Crockett, a former city councilor, were openly distrustful of what the city would do if it did succeed in consolidation. Crockett said the city would “drain the assets” of the water board.

“Their money becomes your money,” Crockett told Gowan.

But Gowan said if the consolidation went through, the city would not be able to touch the water district's $500,000 because it was locked up in a fund.

But Crockett wasn't convinced.

“I'm not foolish enough to believe that their assets will stay their assets - that you, the city, will not touch that - because you have (no money).” Crockett said.

Phyliss Walsh, a resident of Lakeside, and a handful of others, defended Gowan.

“You people are nitpicking,” Walsh said. “I never saw anything like this. A bunch of teenagers. You call people liars. What's wrong with you? What is wrong with you?” she shouted, suggesting the recall is merely an attempt to keep the consolidation off the ballot.

“You're afraid of the voters,” she said. “Why don't you let them go ahead and put it on and vote on this?”

Calvin Walker said he voted for Gowan twice - but won't this August.

“It's because we have lost confidence in you and a couple of the councilors,” Walker said. “I've lost all trust in you and I think you need to go,” And if we have to spend $6,000 (one estimated cost of the recall) to get you out - then that's our legal right to do so.”

Crockett agreed, saying the tax and consolidation plan was just one of the things he didn't like about Gowan's politics.

“You're voted in to help - you're not voted in to run and rule,” he said. “You don't run the agenda. You run the people of this town's agenda.”

One of the loudest cheers of the night came when one man suggested the mayor and councilors save the city some money and simply resign before the recall.

“If they want to run for office again they can,” the man said.

But, as he sat on his pickup's bumper, only a few minutes removed from the haranguing, Gowan said despite the browbeating, he would not resign.

“I still believe I have a lot of support in the community,” Gowan said. “It's usually that the loudest crowds are your weakest crowds. And I have to look at it with that perspective.”