Bonner County clerk, deputy face prosecution
SANDPOINT — Criminal charges are pending against two Bonner County officials, according to the Idaho Statewide Trial Court Record System.
The charges against Clerk Ann Dutson-Sater and Deputy Clerk Charles Konrad Wurm remain filed under seal until they make an initial appearance in court.
A search of the Idaho Supreme Court Supreme Court Data Repository on Tuesday yielded no pending hearing dates in the cases against Dutson-Sater and Wurm.
Dutson-Sater said the case’s sealing prevented her from accessing it on Tuesday, but believes the charges relate to the attempted recall election of Steve Youngdahl, who chairs the Lake Pend Oreille School District’s board of trustees.
Dutson-Sater said in an email to The Daily Bee that she allowed a recall backer to sign off on the petitions “without realizing that he wasn’t the one who gathered all the signatures,” indicating that the oversight was an error rather than an attempt to subvert the law.
Dutson-Sater believes the investigation began when Youngdahl’s supporters pushed for charges against one of the recall’s architects.
The clerk’s office certified last year that recall backers had obtained the necessary amount of signatures to trigger the election. But the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office later ruled that the signatures had to be submitted all at once rather than in stages, which derailed the recall.
Voters in the district’s Zone 5 moved to recall Youngdahl last year after he proposed arming school staff to protect students in the event of a school shooting.
The proposal caused a deep divide in the community. Some supported the proposal, while others saw it as recipe for disaster.
A poll conducted by the Lake Pend Oreille Education Association found that district staff overwhelmingly objected to the proposal.
Youngdahl, meanwhile, came under fire by district patrons who objected to the data he used to backstop the proposal. The data touted the effectiveness of armed civilians in school shootings, but recall backers said the data was gathered through unscientific means by a biased blogger.
Dutson-Sater, a Democrat, faces Republican Michael Rosedale in the Nov. 4 general election.