Council adopts Olsen measure

Libby City Council passed a resolution Tuesday stating the city’s support for the current declaratory action filed by City Attorney Jim Reintsma to finally determine City Councilman Allen Olsen’s residency.

An issue since his election to the council in 2011, Olsen’s residency was brought under greater scrutiny during his 2013 campaign for mayor. Twelve days before the election, Reintsma filed paperwork for a summons, a petition for declaratory and injunctive relief and a restraining order. The restraining order would have delayed the counting of ballots in the mayoral race.

Then, six days before the election, Reintsma withdrew the restraining order, allowing the votes to be counted as planned. In the end, incumbent Doug Roll won the Libby mayoral race by 13 votes.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Councilwoman Robin Benson said she asked Reintsma months ago if the council needed to publicly state its support of the city attorney’s actions. To be clear, Reintsma stated he filed the paperwork to determine Olsen’s residency on his volition alone. He also stated that he wrote the resolution upon Benson’s request.

While Benson said she was unsure why the resolution was making an appearance on the agenda months after her inquiry, Councilman Bill Bischoff, who presided over the meeting in Mayor Roll’s absence, said he requested the item be addressed after requests for documents by Olsen’s attorneys in relation to his suit against Reintsma alleging abuse of process and malicious prosecution.

“That refreshed my memory, and I think it’s a good time to resolve this,” Bischoff, who is also county administrator, said.

Things got a bit out of order as the council discussed the resolution. Shortly after it was presented, Councilwoman Peggy Williams made a motion to adopt the resolution, and Councilwoman Barb Desch made a second. During the further discussion, the second seemed to be lost in the shuffle.

“Being new to this issue, this is vague to me,” Councilman Brent Teske said. “It doesn’t specify what the resolution is covering. I would like some time to discuss what exactly this is about. Everyone agrees this needs to be resolved.”

Olsen went on to make a motion to table the resolution and refer the issue to the city Ordinance Committee.

“In the interest of justice, I second that,” Teske said. “I don’t know what to think about it.”

A split vote followed, with Teske, Olsen and Benson in support of sending the resolution to the Ordinance Committee. With Mayor Roll absent, Bischoff said he believed he could split the vote as the presiding member by voting a second time. But he did not.

“I didn’t want to create more controversy,” Bischoff said.

It was then realized that an earlier motion and second were on the floor to accept the resolution.

“I think I was wrong to put a legal document in the hands of Peggy Williams as the head of the Ordinance Committee,” Benson said after the split vote. “After discussion, I understand and would not want to be in that position.”

A second vote was held to accept the resolution. With Benson in support, the motion passed 4-2.

“I think we need to be talking about infrastructure,” Teske said after the meeting. “We need to address the dam and our water distribution.”

Benson and Olsen both made similar comments before the meeting that Libby has more important things to talk about, like infrastructure.

Also approved at the meeting was an increase in the Libby Police Department’s budget for the financing of two new police cars. The increase was approximately $7,000 during a four-year period. The money will help purchase two 2014 Ford Interceptors.