By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Reggie Emery Sr. wants to make sure the five pages of signed recall petitions he’s collected over the past three weeks won’t go to waste.

“I can’t quit, but I don’t know how to continue,” Emery said Thursday.

He’s worried the movement to unseat Mayor Normand Guay and four city councilors has stalled and he’s afraid that Charles Mollica, the founder of the effort, has given up.

He hasn’t heard from Mollica since he received his petitions three weeks ago. Nobody’s checked in to see how many signatures he’s collected or given him any instructions on what to do once he has them.

Other petition passers are just as frustrated, he said.

“Nobody really knows anything,” he said. “Mollica’s supposed to be the man in charge, and nobody’s heard a word from him.”

The Sun Journal has been unable to reach Mollica as well. Calls to his home and his cell phone go unanswered, and several voice mail and e-mail messages have not been returned.

City Clerk Mary Lou Magno said Mollica and the four other members of his recall petition committee are ultimately responsible for the fate of the recall. They’re the only ones who can ultimately deliver the petitions to the city to begin the recall effort.

“So, we need him or we need someone else to take his place,” Emery said.

So far, he’s collected about 60 signatures of people hoping to recall Guay and at-large City Councilor Kelly Matzen and about 40 willing to recall Ward Three Councilor Eric Samson.

“I don’t have a problem with them, or any of the councilors, personally,” Emery said. “It’s what they’ve done, and how they’ve voted that gets me.”

Specifically, it was a vote at the Nov. 21 council meeting that made him mad. Three of councilors – Matzen, Samson and Ward 2 Councilor Robert Hayes – voted to support $5 million in borrowing to build a parking garage at Great Falls Plaza. Mayor Guay voted to support the garage as well, breaking a deadlock with other councilors. Ward 1 Councilor Bethel Shields, who has been included in the recall effort, did not attend that meeting.

That vote prompted Mollica to begin the recall. He convinced four other residents to sign an affidavit making them responsible for recall petitions. Other members included his wife, Norma; her mother, Jean Raymond, of 485 Turner St.; Noah Wilmot of 37 Cook St. and Daniel Keene of 147 Madison St.

Wilmot and Raymond couldn’t be reached, either. Keene said he was barely involved. He signed his name to the affidavit requesting the petitions, but that was it.

“That was the last time I talked to anybody,” Keene said. “I don’t even really know any of them.”

Other council critics have declined to support the recall. The United Citizens of Auburn, a property tax watchdog group that formed in the wake of a new property revaluation, voted not to get involved in the recall.

“It’s just not the direction we felt we should be taking,” said co-chair Ed Desgrosseilliers.

He’s tried to contact Mollica, as well, and did receive an e-mail from him earlier this week. In it, Mollica said he has been out of town and plans to return next week, but said he doubted the group could gather enough signatures to challenge the councilors before November’s election.

Emery said he doesn’t think that’s the case.

“People are interested and they do care, but they need to know what to do,” he said. “I’d like to keep pushing this thing, but we need some help. We need to know where to go.”