EAST HOPE - The city is slated to address a complaint tonight that Councilwoman Eileen Klatt has a conflict of interest if property is rezoned to commercial residential.

The city's soon-to-be-former Fire Chief Robert Moore filed the complaint with the council last month. He asserts that Klatt should recuse herself from those zoning discussions because her husband is a Realtor.

Klatt's personal legal counsel, Sandpoint attorney Toby McLaughlin, contends the complaint is without merit and there is no pending rezone application before the council.

"Ms. Klatt has not, therefore, been asked to vote with regard to neighborhood commercial zoning, as Mr. Moore seems to allege," McLaughlin said in an Oct. 14 letter to the council.

If the zoning matter does come before the council, McLaughlin said he would evaluate whether a conflict exists that would require she bow out of the discussion.

The city's counsel said it and the state Local Land Use Planning Act also should be consulted if a rezone application emerges. Attorney John Cafferty advised the council there may not even be a conflict because the zone change would be a legislative matter and it would affect everybody in the city, not just a Realtor.

If the claim against Klatt is taken to the extreme, council members and the mayor would be excluded because it would affect them and their property, said Cafferty.

"There is not a conflict of interest with councilmember Klatt participating in a citywide, city-initiated, neighborhood commercial zoning discussion," Cafferty said in an Oct. 23 memorandum to the council.

Klatt, meanwhile, is the subject of a recall drive.

The petition for signatures asserts that she has made unsubstantiated statements and held them out to be facts, improperly used city resources without council approval and violated open meeting laws.

Petition author Tom Austin contends Klatt misrepresented budget figures when the city opted to disband its fire department and be annexed into the fire district. He further alleges that Klatt used the city's legal counsel to determine whether it was legal for city employees to sign the petition.

Moreover, Klatt declined to put the fire district annexation to a vote.

"We've got four people that have taken away the right of 68 people to vote on this," said Austin.

Klatt said she is unsure why she is the only council member being targeted with a possible recall, but stands by the decision to be annexed. She believes the open meeting law violations stem from an email discussion the entire council had on the annexation issue, which ceased when it was viewed as a violation of Idaho's open meeting law.

Klatt believes the recall effort is rooted in the annexation decision and questions she has raised about employee costs.

"It just seems like retaliation to me," she said.