After years of tension, a Libby city councilor says he and the mayor should jointly resign to help the community “move forward.”
City Councilor Allen Olsen suggested the joint resignation to Mayor Doug Roll during last week’s city council meeting. Olsen also suggested that two other councilors, Barb Desch and Peggy Williams, step down.
“The people are sick of (all the disagreements) and it’s time to move Libby forward,” Olsen said. “These issues have gone on so long it really doesn’t matter who started it anymore.”
During the March 7 meeting, Roll said he would “think about it,” but in a later interview with the Beacon the mayor said he would not be stepping down.
“Allen Olsen is just grandstanding,” Roll said. “It’s just silly.”
Olsen said he will only step down if Roll does.
Olsen and Roll have had a long and troubled relationship since the councilor was first elected 2011.
In 2012, Roll refused to put Olsen on any committees because he alleged the councilor did not live within city limits. Then, in 2013, Olsen blasted Roll for fixing a city-owned truck at his garage. Roll said no other garage was able to make the repair quickly, but he later reimbursed the city.
A few months later, Olsen and Roll butted heads again over the lease of a city-owned asphalt zipper. Then in September 2013, former City Attorney James Reintsma threatened Olsen with censure after he continued to criticize the work of a local water irrigation company during city council meetings. Olsen’s tree nursery does water work.
In the 2013 mayoral race, Olsen ran against Roll but just days before the election, the city attorney filed a lawsuit against the councilor trying to stop the election. In the lawsuit, Reintsma alleged that Olsen did not live within the city. A district court judge allowed the election to go forward and Roll beat Olsen by just 13 votes. The following year, Olsen and the city went to trial where a judge determined the councilor did live within Libby city limits.
Soon after the trial, former city council candidate Arlen Magill filed an ethics complaint against the city attorney. In 2015, Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl filed a report alleging the Reintsma, Roll and five city council members violated state election laws when the suit against Olsen was filed. Roll and the five city councilors have all denied the allegations and earlier this year filed a counter lawsuit against Motl.