DULUTH — A handful of fed-up residents in Two Harbors, Minn., hand-delivered more than 100 pages of documents to city officials on Wednesday morning — a crucial step in the campaign to oust the city's controversial mayor, Chris Swanson.

"It is exciting on one hand," said Todd Ronning, an original member of the Resign or Recall initiative that started months ago as the second-term mayor's idea about an underwater hotel in Lake Superior caught attention beyond the city limits. "It's also regrettable. This isn't something anyone wants to do."

Resign or Recall set out to collect signatures from at least 20% of the city's registered voters — the amount needed to initiate a recall election in the North Shore town of about 3,600.

On Wednesday, the group handed off a petition with about double that number. Joel Dhein, a retired city administrator from Mora, Minn., who stepped into the interim role in Two Harbors nine days ago, said he counted 970 names. (The city's last administrator left for a position in Montana this past summer.)

Dhein said he and city clerk Patricia Nordean will spend the next few days checking the signatures against a list of the city's registered voters. If they have the required number of verified names, which is close to 500, the petition will be passed along to the City Council at its May 9 meeting. From there, the council will decide whether to move forward with the recall election — which would be Aug. 9 as part of the primary election.

"We just hope that with the overwhelming number we've presented that the mayor will take note and see the writing on the wall and choose to resign," Ronning said Wednesday. "Should he choose not to, we're poised to move forward with the recall election.

"It's in the city's hands now."

If the names are confirmed, Swanson will also have the option to resign — though he has said he will not. He did not immediately return a phone call, and his city e-mail address kicked back an auto-response. He is no longer reading e-mails sent to that account, he said. Swanson offered the options of the general phone number for the city of Two Harbors as well as correspondences sent to City Hall via postal mail.

Some residents of Two Harbors have grown frustrated with overlap between the mayor's business ventures and his political position. City Attorney Tim Costley recently returned an opinion that some of Swanson's online activity — including a now-shuttered Twitter account — violate city policy and that he has used his position for personal gain. Swanson was expected to comment on the opinion during Monday's City Council meeting but did not.

This has left residents with little choice, Ronning said.

"We all have lives to lead that have been put on hold to do this," he said. "It's something we're compelled to do, obligated to do, and we have mechanisms in our charter to do this. It's been empowering to the citizens of Two Harbors that there is something they can do, and we're confident our support for the petition will translate into support at the ballot, and we can put this behind us."