Neff calls for Roll to step down

As he prepares to end his four-month run as a Libby City Councilman, Gary Neff said Libby Mayor Doug Roll needs to step down and allow the City Council to get the city back on track.

“The mayor has to leave and the replacement has to got to give back the authority that belongs to the council,” Neff said. “This would force the council to work together to solve problems, which would also build trust.”

A lack of trust between the mayor and council, Neff said, is the biggest obstacle to the city solving the problems it currently faces. The lack of trust, he said, has prevented the council from discussing matters properly and ahead of time, forcing last-minute decisions by uninformed council members.

Neff said last year’s decision to contract the law firm of Doney Crowley P.C. and Richard Allan Payne as the city’s attorney is just one example of such last-minute, uninformed decision making.

The appointment was approved with very little discussion, over the objections of council members Allen Olsen and Brent Teske, who both requested an opportunity to meet with Payne prior to the appointment. The contract, Neff said, should never have been accepted by the council.

“I couldn’t believe how one-sided the contract was,” Neff said. 

Neff said in order for the city to move forward in a positive direction, it is vital that the council have open discussion in advance of decision deadlines. 

“There are just too many things handled at the last minute,” he said. “The council should be gathering information ahead of time in order to give informed consent about the issues in front of us, but there’s no trust and that keeps anything positive from moving forward.”

Neff was appointed, over the veto of Roll, to replace resigning council member Bill Bischoff, who left the council in order to avoid conflict with the Public Employee Retirement System after he retired from employment with the Lincoln County government.

The seat was up for election during November’s contest, along with the seats held by incumbent council members Peggy Williams and Allen Olsen. Both Williams and Olsen were reelected, along with newcomer Brian Zimmerman. Neff was not on the ballot.

Neff plans to run for mayor in 2017, the next general mayoral election. To that end, he said, he is already starting to campaign by meeting people and discussing the affairs of the city. He said even though his term as a member of the City Council is over, he intends to remain actively involved in city business.