Kootenai County Clerk Cliff Hayes filed a petition Tuesday in district court asking for a judge to clarify the timeline on the recall petition effort.

Recall CDA and Recall CDA organizer, Frank Orzell, the City of Coeur d'Alene, and petition targets Mayor Sandi Bloem and council members Mike Kennedy, Woody McEvers and Deanna Goodlander are all co-respondents named in the legal document.

The petition, filed by the Kootenai County Prosecutor's Office, says Idaho Code does not provide clear direction regarding the date the petitioners must turn over their signatures to the county clerk's office for validation. It also says the law does not make clear how long the clerk's office has to examine the petitions.

In question is whether a 75-day deadline named in the code includes 15 days for the county clerk's office to certify the validity of the 4,311 signatures required to be on each of four petitions.

Coeur d'Alene City Clerk Susan Weathers certified the documents needed to launch the petition effort on April 5. If the petitioners have 75 days to gather signatures, the deadline is June 19.

The Secretary of State's opinion is that the 15 days for the county clerk's office to validate the signatures is included in the 75 days. A copy of Idaho Deputy Secretary of State Tim Hurst's letter to the city can be downloaded from this page.

Hayes is asking the court to set a deadline date for the petitions to be submitted to his office and to determine whether the signatures must be validated by June 19, or if they can be validated after that date.

The clerk also asked the court to be swift in making its decision.

"This is a matter of great importance to the individual parties, and moreover of great public importance to the voters of the City of Coeur d'Alene in general," the document states.