Mayor plans to request action against councilmember

Citing the use of false accusations and the creation of a hostile work environment for city employees, Libby mayor Doug Roll announced that he will request that the city council investigate councilmember D.C. Orr for official misconduct with the intention of removing him from office.

“I requested that the city attorney (Heather McDougall) look into doing something at this point because he has accused (city clerk Glena Hook) of criminal misconduct,” Roll said. “I asked Heather to find out what we can do to get this stopped – halted.”

A longtime critic of the mayor and city council, Orr has, according to Roll, held a conspiratorial and distrustful attitude for him and others, such as Hook, since his appointment to the council last December.

Orr has thrown out many allegations, most recent of which have targeted Hook, and has accused Roll of covering up Hook’s alleged misconduct.

When informed last week of the mayor’s decision, Orr recalled the council’s unsuccessful attempt in 2006 to remove Stu Crismore from the council, a motion that Roll, a councilmember at the time, voted in favor of. Crismore took the issue all the way to the Montana Supreme Court and won the case, costing the city thousands of dollars in legal fees. 

“If Doug doesn’t want you on the council, Doug is going to try to get you removed,” Orr said. “I’d be interested in seeing what he said I did for misconduct because my conduct has been professional through all this.”

Orr was granted a temporary restraining order against Hook in November, but got the order quashed a month later hours before a scheduled hearing to determine whether or not the order should be extended. In his supporting affidavit, he stated that he feared Hook, though after he withdrew his request, he said that the order of protection had “served its purpose,” gaining him access to paperwork that supposedly supported his accusation of harassment by Hook.

Roll responded to some of Orr’s accusations the previous month in an Oct. 5 e-mail to the council. He stated that Hook was afraid of Orr, and that any problems Orr had with Hook would not be brought up in a public meeting because it was a private personnel issue. He warned Orr that the city would not protect him from any litigation stemming from his “attacks on Ms. Hook.”

In an Oct. 6 e-mail to the council, Orr accused Roll of using Hook to “cause trouble” and warned him that he would go public with his dispute against the city clerk.

“Doug, this e-mail, your first ever, was a blatant attempt at prior restraint to keep this issue out of the public’s eye,” Orr replied in the e-mail. “You have encouraged me to make it very public.”

A month later, Orr requested an order of protection against Hook, gaining attention in local newspapers and the Missoulian.

Orr, who has been heavily involved in Superfund site issues and the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup efforts since asbestos exposure was first discovered, said he believed Roll was conspiring with the EPA to get him off of the council.

“It is my opinion that Doug is trying to do this so he can do whatever the EPA wants him to do without somebody like D.C. looking over his shoulder and the best interest of the community,” Orr said, mentioning the upcoming Record of Decision on the old export plant site. “D.C. is the one looking out for the interest of the community and that is exactly why he wants me off the council.”

Orr’s most recent accusation became public in an article last week in the Missoulian. The focus of the article was Orr dropping his order of protection against Hook. However, Orr used the platform to accuse Hook of “criminal accounting errors” that he believed Roll was covering up.

It was the last straw for Roll, who said it was his duty to protect city employees.

“Because of Mr. Orr’s false restraining order and his using the judicial system to harass and intimidate a city employee,” Roll said, “I think we need to look at removing him from office – especially after the accusation of criminal accounting practices.”

Roll pointed out that Hook made a “simple clerical error” when she calculated expected revenue from interest related to sewer. She misplaced a decimal point, he said, which projected the city earning $9,800 instead of $98,000. Within days of the city passing the budget with the mistake, the city’s bonding company for the Cabinet Heights sewer project contacted the city to make sure the city would have enough sewer income for the upcoming loan, according to Roll.

Hook found the error and then brought it to the council to pass a resolution to make the change in the budget.

“When you got a guy like that looking over your shoulder all the time, you make mistakes. OK, everybody does, but it’s nothing done on purpose,” Roll said. “But he takes it as some sort of criminal activity or some sort of ‘you did it on purpose.’ It’s got to stop.”

State law allows a city council to expel a member with a two-thirds vote, which would entail four of the five councilmembers, excluding Orr, to vote in favor of his removal.

The incoming council, which includes three new members, takes over in January and will be presented with the issue.

The incoming council was taken off-guard last week when contacted about Roll’s plan because he had not yet brought it to the council’s attention. Incoming councilmembers said they had no comment until they were given more information.

Current councilmembers Peggy Williams and Bill Bischoff said they were hesitant to remove Orr from office, but not opposed to investigating his actions.

“To me, it’s premature to say if I would support an action against D.C.,” Williams said. “I would have to see a lot of background paperwork and see how they would make it stick.”

Though Williams was not a councilmember in 2006 when the council voted to remove Crismore, she remembers the ensuing legal battle and, she said, it makes her leery.

Bischoff agrees with Roll that Orr is making the city vulnerable to litigation, but he is not convinced yet that removing Orr from office is the answer. Bischoff voted in 2006 against Crismore’s removal.

“I’m not opposed to investigating anything,” Bischoff said. “If we have a hostile work environment for employees, we’re subject to that liability – (such as Orr) making false accusations in the newspaper, especially referring to criminal actions with no proof.”

Bischoff said that after an investigation, he would support some sort of council action, such as censuring Orr, formally acknowledging disapproval for his actions.

Roll said that if the council won’t remove Orr, he will begin the recall process.

“I’ve got to have 254 signatures – I’ve looked into it – on a recall petition,” Roll said. “I’ve got to show we’re trying to do something about this guy.”

State law entails that 20 percent of the city’s registered voters sign a petition in order to begin the recall process of an elected or appointed city official. If the petition is accepted and the number of signatures met, the issue is put on a ballot for a citywide vote.