Olsen files court papers on Roll conflict-of-interest case

Libby City Councilman Allen Olsen is proceeding with a conflict-of-interest lawsuit against Libby Mayor Doug Roll, and the first-term city official last week filed papers in district court alleging wrongdoing.

“He may have paid the money back on both repairs, and I commend him for that,” Olsen said. “However, the fact remains, the mayor did service work on not one, but two city vehicles, which is clearly a conflict of interest.”

Olsen said he is just proceeding in this process as outlined in the Montana Code Annotated, going first to City Attorney James Reintsma, then County Attorney Bernard Cassidy and now to the district court.

“The district court is the next step in this process. I’ve taken the first two, and got nowhere. Now, I’m moving on to step three,” Olsen said. “This is not going to go away. It cost me $120 to file the case and another $50 to have the sheriff serve him the papers. I’m going to pursue this.”

So far, Roll has been mum on the issue. When asked about the case and repaying the money he received for doing the repair work, Roll said he did “not want to comment at this time.” However, City Clerk Glena Hook confirmed Roll paid the money back “sometime late in February.”

Hook had indicated the payment could be reconciled by the council’s next meeting on April 15.

At issue is Roll’s decision to do repair work on a city-owned vehicle at his auto-repair business, DP Automotive. Olsen alleges in performing the work on the truck used by the Wastewater Treatment Plant, Roll violated the conflict of interest provisions outlined in Montana Code Annotated Section 7-3-4256, which prohibits elected officials from performing such work.

Roll subsequently admitted he had done another repair previously on another city-owned vehicle. Roll’s check in late February reportedly was repayment for both jobs, meaning he essentially did the work gratis.

The issue came to light during the Feb. 4 City Council meeting, when the board voted to 5-1 to approve payment of all the January bills, which included a payment to DP Automotive for $289.20, which included $93 for labor for the truck repair. Olsen voted to approve all bills excluding the one to DP Automotive.

Subsequently, at the Feb. 19 meeting, Roll and Olsen exchanged barbs immediately upon adjournment that lasted more than two minutes.