Mayor Roll: council 'moved Libby forward'

(Editor’s Note: Mayor Doug Roll was given an opportunity to respond to a submission by City Councilman Allen Olsen that criticized Roll and the City Council. In the interest of fairness, we extended the deadline for election-related submissions to accommodate Roll’s letter.)

I would like to thank The Western News for giving me this opportunity to respond to Mr. Olsen’s comments.

   First of all, when any bill (claim) is questioned, we address any concerns that may be brought to our attention, and to my knowledge very few if any have been shown to be inaccurate or incorrect in any substantial way.

Next, this council has striven to move Libby forward in all areas of our infrastructure, keeping in mind at all times whose money we are spending (city taxpayers).

Before any decision (vote) is made, many factors are taken into account — engineers’ estimates, contractors’ materials list and labor costs and references (customers) from previous projects.

All discussions are done in a properly announced meeting and a vote taken with public involvement in every step of the process.

After taking into account the above-mentioned criteria, the low bid is not always the best value for the city. This council has always discussed public matters in an open manner and has never made a decision  that didn’t involve the public.

As far as requests by individual council to our city attorney, that is allowable under city ordinance, especially when the city may be liable for the actions of an individual council member.

Please feel free to contact the city at any time if you have any questions or concerns with anything that may be going on in the city, please call, 293-2731.

(Doug Roll is mayor of Libby.)