Hauser citizens organizing mayoral recall

Not even three months into his first term in office, Hauser Mayor Don Werst is under fire from unhappy constituents who are criticizing his leadership style as too authoritarian and are organizing a recall.

Hauser resident Ben Nelson is behind the recall effort. He said the Werst has improperly fired a city contractor, belittled other officials and performed city business without the authorization of the city council.

“We’re not a bunch of hysterical whackos,” Nelson said. “This guy has been completely off-base since he took office.”

The problems began when Werst terminated the city code administration contract with Tina McCoy, Nelson’s partner.

Nelson said that action required council approval, but Werst said the city’s attorney informed him that McCoy’s removal was entirely legal because council approval of such terminations is necessary only if the position is appointed. McCoy was a consultant. Even so, Werst said he polled council members on the issue.

McCoy’s removal was not a simple matter because it delayed a scheduled hearing on a significant Hauser development, Nelson said. Werst said that he offered to allow McCoy to finish up work on that project.

Why should she, Nelson asked.

Nelson said he is also troubled by an action in February in which Werst submitted a re-declaration of a snow emergency to Kootenai County that indicated it had been voted on by the Hauser City Council even though the council hadn’t taken action on it.

“He affixed the city seal to that disaster declaration document saying it was approved by the mayor and City Council. That just wasn’t so,” Nelson said.

Werst called the incident an innocent mistake. He and the city clerk had drawn up the declaration in anticipation of council passage and then the council didn’t act on it. The original document wasn’t amended to reflect that, Werst said.

“I made a mistake by not forcing the vote,” he said.

For his part, Werst said that the recall effort stems solely from his decision to terminate McCoy in favor of someone else.

“The basis for everything at this point is just that the party is unhappy we elected to go a different way with code administration,” Werst said. “Anything I do I have to walk on eggs.”

Hauser Councilwoman Carmen Miller did not want to speak much about the recall effort, but said she has had run-ins with the new mayor.

In one e-mail exchange, Werst responded to Miller’s procedural questions by calling her a “roadblock to all our effort to move forward,” and calling her an “embarrassment to the City, the Council, and the public.”

Nelson called the insults typical of Werst. “He’s just used to pushing people around,” Nelson said. “If anyone questions him, he gets angry.”

Other council members did not return calls for comment.

Any recall in the small town of about 675 people cannot proceed yet.

According to Idaho law, a recall petition cannot be circulated until an elected official has been in office at least 90 days – a marker that is fast approaching for Werst.

At that time recall organizers would submit 20 signatures of Hauser registered voters to the city clerk with the petition language. Once the clerk reviews a petition and approves it, recall organizers would then have 75 days to gather signatures totaling 20 percent of the number of people who voted in the November election in which Werst was elected.

Werst said he’s not going to let the threat of recall stop him from attending to city business.

“If they want to recall me they can shoot their best shot but they’re not going to run me off,” he said.