A dispute between members of the Troy City Council and Mayor Donald Banning has spilled out of the town hall and into a Lincoln County courtroom. Early this month a petition was filed with the county to recall Banning from office and the mayor responded by filing a restraining order. A hearing to decide if the recall is legitimate will be held in Libby on March 14.
Councilor Fran McCully filed the petition with Lincoln County election officials. She said Banning has repeatedly abused his power, approving contracts and trying to fire city employees without the council’s consent.
“He has refused to work with people and does it his own way, even if it’s against the law,” McCully said.
But Banning said he’s only doing his job and that he has the support of other council members. He believes the recall is simply a move by unsatisfied council members to manage the city themselves.
“I’d like to be able to do my job and not have to answer to those people,” Banning said. “They have to answer to me.”
Lincoln County’s Assistant Election Administrator Leigh Riggleman said recalls are extremely rare and, in her 20 years with the county, this is the farthest any effort has gotten. A recall of an elected official is permitted by the Montana Recall Act and must be submitted to the county with specific reasons for the action and a petition signed by a certain percentage of registered voters. In Troy, 125 signatures were needed in the town of fewer than 1,000. Once the petition, which began circulating in late January, was deemed legitimate, a letter was sent to Banning on Feb. 7 informing him of the recall.
Both McCully and Banning were elected in November 2009 and took their respective offices two months later. McCully said she had even campaigned for Banning, believing the two shared similar visions for Troy and that they could work together. But once the job of governing began, McCully said the mayor changed.
“After the first month in office we saw that the mayor had developed an attitude and that he wanted to run the whole show,” she said.
Council President Phil Fisher, who took office at the same time, said the council has repeatedly tried to reason with the mayor, but events in the last year have made it impossible. He said the recall is a “last resort.”
An affidavit McCully submitted to election officials gave four reasons for Banning’s recall. It stated that Banning had tried to fire City Attorney Charles Evans without the prior consent of council or legitimate reason; that in March 2011, Banning had cashed a check for $331.80 to cover travel expenses not approved by the council; that the mayor had approved the construction of a picnic area and pavilion at Roosevelt Park without ever consulting the council; and that Banning had gone forward with the codification of city ordinances and never told anyone.
According to the town’s charter, section 2.03, “The council shall be the legislative and policy determining body of the city.” The duties of mayor are outlined in section 3.04 of the charter, which states that the mayor must enforce laws, ordinances and resolutions and report to the city council as it requires.
At the city council meeting last week, the contract with Evans, the city attorney, was terminated after the four-person council split the vote, two in favor and two against. Banning cast the deciding vote in favor of termination. At the same meeting, money for the new picnic area was formally appropriated. But McCully said it was approved because construction had already begun.
Banning said the reasons McCully cited for the recall were “bogus” and that the council was overstepping its bounds.
“They’re just legislators – they write ordinances and that’s it,” said Banning, who was a city councilor for eight years before becoming mayor. “They want to micromanage and they can’t do that.”
Newly elected Councilor Joe Arts, who took office in January, said he supported the mayor and that the two councilors behind the recall – McCully and Fisher – have been working hard to increase their power. If a recall were to happen, the council would appoint a new chief executive to serve until the next mayoral election in November 2013.
“I think the people of Troy are tired of the gamesmanship they are trying to pull,” Arts said. “I don’t think it will be successful.”
Currently the recall process is held up in court. Riggleman said once Banning was informed of the recall, he had five days to resign or 10 days to file a 200-word letter stating he would stay and take part in a special election. Instead, Banning and his attorney filed for a temporary restraining order and injunction against the recall petition. On March 14, a judge in Libby will decide if the recall petition is legitimate. If the restraining order is lifted and the recall moves forward, Riggleman said the process of setting up a special election would begin.
McCully said she planned on attending the March 14 hearing and stating her case for the recall.
“Everyone else can work together,” she said. “We just can’t work with the mayor.”