The Osage County Commission wants Sheriff Michael Dixon out of office after the state Public Safety department on Monday revoked his license to be a law officer.
Commissioners adopted two resolutions Tuesday morning in an effort to get Dixon to leave.
"One was to ask Dixon to resign, and the other was that - if he refused to resign - to request that a quo warranto proceeding be initiated against him, in order to have him removed from office," Osage County Prosecutor Amanda Grellner explained.
Grellner said the ouster proceeding would have to be filed in Osage County, where Dixon works and lives.
However, she said, there are several options for that ouster proceeding.
The commission can ask the Attorney General's Office to file the quo warranto motion on the county's behalf.
Or the attorney general and his staff could file their own motion asking the circuit court to remove Dixon from office.
Or commissioners could ask Grellner to file the motion as the county's lawyer.
Although neither Grellner nor the attorney general's office would comment on the specifics that might be in an ouster motion, at least part of the legal basis for it is the state law requirement that the sheriff be licensed by the state, under the Peace Officer Standards and Training system the Public Safety department manages.
And Monday's decision by Deputy Director Andrea Spillars revoked Dixon's license immediately - although some wonder about the effect of another law that gives him 30 days to appeal her decision in circuit court.
Dixon pleaded guilty last summer to harassment - a misdemeanor criminal charge. Also, his attorneys argued Dixon should get either probation or no disciplinary action at all.
Dixon had been charged with a felony - taking a motor vehicle (a four-wheeler) without the owner's permission - and several misdemeanor counts of sexual misconduct, third-degree assault, stalking and harassment.
All the charges followed incidents over a couple of days in June 2013, less than six months after Dixon took office as the Osage County sheriff on Jan. 1.
Dixon admitted to being involved in actions involving a Belle city deputy identified in court records only as C.M. - including making "repeated phone calls to C.M., as well as repeated comments of a suggestive or sexual nature and touching or striking her genital area with a flashlight."
Also as part of the plea agreement, the felony charge was dropped. Had Dixon been convicted of that felony, he would have lost his job immediately because state law also says: "No person shall be eligible for the office of sheriff who has been convicted of a felony."
Under an old state law, the county prosecutor would have become sheriff temporarily, until the county commission could name a new sheriff.
But that changed with the POST licensing requirement.
Now the law says: "Whenever from any cause the office of sheriff becomes vacant, the same shall be filled by the county commission."
And, because it's more than nine months until the next general election in November 2016, the commissioners also must "immediately order a special election" and the commission's interim sheriff would serve only "until the person chosen at such election shall be duly qualified."