The effort to recall Libby Mayor Doug Roll has reached the half-way mark en route to obtaining the required number of signatures to go to ballot, petition group leaders announced on Tuesday.

In a prepared statement, Libby resident and petitioner Tammy Brown announced that the Committee to Move Libby Forward, the group spearheading the effort to recall Roll, has obtained 165 of the 329 valid signatures required to put the recall on the November ballot. County election officials validated the petition on June 17; Brown has until Sept. 17 to collect signatures from 329 voters registered with the city of Libby.

“We have people going door-to-door gathering signatures,” Brown said in her statement. “We expect we’ll be able to wrap this up well before the end of the month. We’ve had a great response so far and it just goes to show the people of Libby are tired of the nonsense from our city leadership.”

Brown attended Tuesday’s city council meeting with copies of the petition in hand. Her statement said the effort has gone door-to-door to reach voters, where Brown said after the meeting that she’s only met two residents who were against the petition.

The others, she said, have had a unified response to the petition.

“Give me that,” Brown told The Western News was the response to most residents at the arrival of the petition to their doorstep.

In her statement, Brown also offered to bring the petition to anyone who has transportation issues.

Four of Libby’s six city council members have already signed the petition, including Allen Olsen, Brian Zimmerman, Dejon Raines and Brent Teske. In Brown’s Tuesday statement, she reminded officials and residents alike that the opportunity to change the faces of leadership is upon them.

“It’s time to move Libby forward, and that is just what we intend to do. Government in this country is by the people, for the people, which means it’s our job to fix the problem,” the statement said.

Roll on Thursday declined to comment on the petition’s progress.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.