Mandan recall petitions filed

By GORDON WEIXEL
Bismarck Tribune

For the second time this year, lawyer Ben Pulkrabek has turned in recall petitions for members of the Mandan City Commission - this time he expects there will be a special election.

Pulkrabek turned the petitions into the auditor's office just before lunch time on Wednesday. They are for Mayor Ken LaMont and commissioners Dan Ulmer and Sandra Tibke.

The reason remains the same, dissatisfaction.... with the commission's efforts regarding the settlement with BNSF Railway and the remediation effort. Last time Pulkrabek turned in recall petitions for all five commissioners including Tim Helbling and Stan Scott.

The petitions for Helbling and Scott were discounted since the commissioners were up for election in Tuesday's municipal election. Helbling retained his seat, receiving the most votes (1,375) of the five candidates. But Scott was ousted by downtown businessman Jerome Gangl who garnered 1,117 votes to the incumbent's 982.

"Some people may have thought that since Helbling was elected I wasn't going to go through with this (the recall)," Pulkrabek said. "But I feel this way: We got rid of one commissioner, and we're batting .500. You get a starting job in the big leagues if you're hitting like that."

Pulkrabek added that if anyone is interested in recalling Helbling, he'd be more than happy to help. But Pulkrabek's intentions are to stick to the three petitions he's turned in.

Helbling said his re-election does lend credibility to the actions the city commission has taken.

"I think it's a vote of confidence and lends support to what we're (city commission) doing," Helbling said. "But people have the right for a recall if they so choose. There are so many good things over the horizon. If we just can get over this hump we'll be there."

To recall the mayor and commissioners, Pulkrabek needed 492 signatures for each person. In the last attempt at recalling LaMont, Tibke and Ulmer, signatures were found to be invalid with instances of one person signing for another - in many cases it was a husband or wife signing for their spouse. By state law, one such occurrence on a page of 25 signatures invalidated the entire page. Because of this the recall attempt fell short of the necessary signatures.

This time Pulkrabek said much more attention was paid to the signatures to make sure each was valid. The Mandan attorney noted that the petitions were not due until July 27, and he and the petition sponsors were able to pull together the necessary numbers far more quickly.

The recall committee also was able to collect more signatures than the needed 492. For Tibke 563 were collected, LaMont 574 and Ulmer 559.

Ulmer and Tibke question the reason for the recall but agree Pulkrabek has the right to do so.

"I have mixed feelings," Ulmer said. "Frankly, I hope he has his stuff in order and we can get this over with."

Ulmer maintains the settlement is a done deal and there are no issues to debate.

"What are the people of Mandan really voting on here?" Ulmer said. "Pulkrabek hasn't told us, and no one on the sponsoring committee has. In fact, I don't know any of the people on the sponsoring committee. Who are they and what do they want? The people of Mandan need to know."

Tibke said that she's made many decisions as a city commissioner and the ones she was most sure of were the settlement with BNSF, the picking of the firm to handle the remediation and actually proceeding on the clean up.

"I feel very comfortable with our decisions," Tibke said. "I would like to hear how they would have done it differently. What is this group's vision. I haven't heard anything."

Deputy auditor Phyllis Hager said the city will go through the same process it did before in verifying the petitions, which will likely include telephone calls to many of the signers. The city has 30 days to verify the petitions. Once it's determined there are sufficient signatures the city will have to call a special election no sooner than 50 days or later than 60 days.

Hager said it's hard to determine how long verification will take, but added that it appeared the petitions had been critiqued more thoroughly than before.

How soon the petitions can be verified will depend on how many city employees will be available to help, according to Hager. It's the beginning of the vacation season, and the city has several time consuming projects in the works.

Pulkrabek noted that his recall campaign does not have any specific candidates to run for the commission, but several people have indicated to him they are interested.

Having just completed one election, another one may be held yet this summer in Mandan.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)