Unofficial petition calls for recall of Roll

An unofficial petition calling for the recall of Libby Mayor Doug Roll has hit the Internet.

The petition, on the popular petition site change.org references Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl’s recent finding that Roll, along with former City Attorney James Reinstma and current and former City Council members Robin Benson, Vicky Lawrence, Barbara Desch, Peggy Williams and Bill Bischoff violated Montana’s campaign practice laws by improperly using city resources to influence the 2013 Libby mayoral election.

Rob Hubbard, who has been a vocal critic of the mayor and several members of the council, started the petition last week. Hubbard said he knows the petition is unofficial, but feels it’s an important starting point.

“This is a preliminary move to see what kind of support is out there,” he said. “The idea is to get all those people together to sign the real petition, to start with the low-hanging fruit.”

 Montana law stipulates a public official can be removed only for very specific reasons. The reasons are delineated in MCA Section 2-16-603(3):

“Physical or mental lack of fitness, incompetence, violation of the oath of office, official misconduct or conviction of a felony offense enumerated in Title 45 are the only grounds for recall. A person may not be recalled for performing a mandatory duty of the office that the person holds or for not performing any act that, if performed, would subject the person to prosecution for official misconduct.”

Hubbard said he hasn’t decided exactly how the official recall petition should be worded, if the situation progresses to that point. 

“I think it would fall under incompetence,” he said. “But there are a lot of grounds this could fall under, especially now that there is a finding.”

Under Montana law, a recall petition for a city official must include the certified signatures of at least 20 percent of the electorate registered to vote at the preceding election for the city. In Libby’s 2013 municipal election, there were 1,617 registered voters, meaning the petition must include at least 323 signatures.

Only people qualified to vote in the mayoral election are eligible to sign the official petition, and a false signature on a petition is a violation of Title 45 of Montana law as either unsworn falsification or tampering with public records.

Hubbard said he hopes the situation doesn’t escalate to the point of requiring a formal recall election.

“We would fully hope that he would resign and save the City of Libby not only the money but also the embarrassment of a fight,” he said. “I believe he’s doing the city a grave disservice.”

Mayor Roll was unwilling to comment, as he had not yet seen the petition.

“I haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t have any comment,” he said.

As of press time, eight people had signed the petition during the five days since it was started.