County
Ada Treas Files Criminal Complaint Against Commishes Over Reorganization Of Trash Authority
July 31, 2015 
The criminal division of the Idaho Attorney General’s office has declined to prosecute Ada County’s three Commissioners following a criminal complaint filed by Ada County Treasurer Vicky McIntyre claiming a conflict of interest over trash billing and other issues with Republic Services, the county contracted trash collector.
During one interview with AG investigators over an eight month period, McIntyre said her criminal complaint was “in retaliation” for actions taken by the commissioners who rehired her chief deputy after McIntyre had fired her. Also included in the bundle of issues was a reorganization which took responsibility for oversight and liaison with the trash collector away from the treasurer and created a new office headed up by the previously fired ex-chief deputy treasurer.
The basis for McIntyre’s allegations stem from campaign contributions to the Commishes totaling $7,300 between October 2004 and July 2012. Yzaguirre got $3,800, Tibbs took in $1,500, and Case accepted $2,000 from Republic Services in the form of campaign contributions.
All three Commishes told the AG investigator there was no “quid pro quo” for the contributions and all payments were made to election committees and duly reported.
The AG report and related documents reveal a power struggle in the county administration and an acrimonious atmosphere between the Commishes and the Treasurer. They simply changed the law and took away her staff and McIntyre filed a criminal complaint with the AG.
In the letter declining to prosecute under a fairly new statute giving the AG authority to investigate crooked county government, Chief Deputy Paul Panther said:
“The actions which form the basis of the complaint are that the Ada County Commissioners awarded contracts and continued to award annual rate increases to a vendor who had recently contributed to each commissioner’s campaign. Our investigation revealed that though the vendor in question did contribute to each commissioner’s campaign, such contributions did not violate Idaho Code.”
The documents in the report paint a picture of major feuding between the Commishes and the Treasurer.
We offer some excerpted documents from the report…
INVESTIGATOR SUMMARY– IAR #03-TJF-McIntyre meeting RETALIAT
LETTER DECLINING TO PROSECUTE– Decline letter (pdf).D59F9A4FE3F1B985
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Jul 31, 2015, 9:56 pm
First rule of retaliation club: don’t mention that you’re in retaliation club.
Aug 1, 2015, 9:48 am
Now if we could just get them to fight over, and therefore prevent, tax increases and other plunder.
State, County, City, School, Roads, Police, and Fire officials seem to be fairly well coordinated on finding ways to take more of our money AND making excuses for a falling level of service.
Last year: “PANIC PANIC PANIC!!! We can’t fix the roads! We must raise taxes.”
Last week: “$115M surplus!! Raises for everyone, and hire your sister too.”
Aug 1, 2015, 11:15 am
Office politics exists in government, volunteer organizations and private industry.
Aug 1, 2015, 3:28 pm
You all should remember, the truth about taxes, our elected official’s are not conservatives. They are twins to the progressives who believe government is everything.
Aug 1, 2015, 8:14 pm
Another example of the need for election campaign reform for all offices.
Murphy, tax issues are rarely determined by “conservative” OR “progressive” view-point holders. It is usually a combination of what the traffic will bear vs the demand by the public for action.
Aug 4, 2015, 9:30 am
“Simply changed the law”? What law was changed and how?
What is next? Removing auditor oversight of commish spending and wish lists?
Changing the statutory duties of any elected official appears to violate the system of checks and balances.
What are the specifics of how this “law” was changed?
EDITOR NOTE–Old system had the Treasurer running the trash billing (similar to the city system). They removed that duty, established a new office and rehired the Treas former chief deputy to run it.
I believe it was an ordinance change…could have been just by resolution.
Aug 7, 2015, 9:17 am
“Our investigation revealed that though the vendor in question did contribute to each commissioner’s campaign, such contributions did not violate Idaho Code.” This is where our yes man AG explains to us dummies that its legal for those of us with no moral compass to buy off elected officials. Idaho has such great history of being on the RIGHT side of recent controversial laws, its too bad this one couldn’t be challenged as well.