By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Five residents seeking to unseat Mayor Normand Guay and four city councilors should have their petitions in hand this afternoon.

They’ll begin passing the petitions immediately, trying to get enough signatures to force a recall election. Organizer Charles Mollica said he expects to have enough signatures by mid-December at the latest.

“Just based on the number of inquiries I’ve had since we started this, I don’t think we’ll have any problem filling the petitions,” Mollica said.

Notarized signatures from him and the other members of his recall committee were the only things standing between the group and the petitions Tuesday.

Mollica stopped by the city clerk’s office Tuesday afternoon to sign the affidavits. Mollica said his wife, Norma, another member of the committee, would stop in today, and the rest would stop by the end of the day.

The group launched the recall effort last Tuesday, after a City Council meeting that drew more than 1,000 residents to complain about property taxes and the city’s new property revaluation. Mollica, who watched the meeting on Great Falls TV, said he was convinced the mayor and the four councilors did not listen to taxpayers and needed to be removed from office.

His group doesn’t have a plan for gathering the signatures yet, he said. Some will take the petitions door to door throughout the city, while others may take up positions outside stores.

Old charter rules

Auburn’s old charter, adopted in 1990, will govern the recall effort, said City Clerk Mary Lou Magno. She confirmed that with the city attorneys on Tuesday. They also signed off on the language for the petition request, she said.

Magno said the biggest question that faced her office was which charter to use. Voters adopted a new charter at the polls earlier this month, but it does not become effective until the first day of the new fiscal year, July 1, 2006.

“It’s much simpler once I had that determined,” she said. “The charter is pretty specific about what happens next.”

Under the current charter, Mollica and his committee have an unlimited amount of time to circulate their petitions.Under the new charter, they’d have had to gathered all of the necessary signatures within 90 days.

The group needs to gather 2,485 signatures from registered voters citywide to challenge Mayor Normand Guay and Councilor-at-large Kelly Matzen. They need signatures from 523 voters to challenge Councilor Bethel Shields, 520 signatures to challenge Councilor Robert Hayes, and 486 signatures to challenge Councilor Eric Samson.

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