BCRCC votes to replace Bradshaw on commission
SANDPOINT — Saying he's no longer a Bonner County resident, the Bonner County Republican Central Committee voted 19-5 to replace Steve Bradshaw on the county commission. There was one abstention.
The committee called on commissioners Asia Williams and Ron Korn to immediately seat Commissioner-elect Brian Domke and "cease to act in any way that recognizes any further authority of Steve Bradshaw … due to his demonstrated abandonment of his residency and thus his completed vacation of his former position on the board."
The committee also called for Bradshaw to be prosecuted for improperly receiving $8,000 in monthly salary as well as accompanying taxes and benefits to which they contend he was not entitled.
The move is in response to a decision by Gov. Brad Little opting against appointing one of three candidates, which included Domke, to the seat after the BCRCC declared the seat vacant in mid-November. In his decision, Little said that no resignation letter from Bradshaw had been received nor had written confirmation from the Bonner County Commission that a vacancy existed.
Bradshaw previously disputed claims he has moved to Texas and remains a Bonner County resident.
“If owning a piece of real estate in another state is an issue, then I guess half of our county and the state legislators have an issue,” Bradshaw said, in a Nov. 7 response to an email sent by Herndon to BCRCC members earlier that day. “I have not declared residency other (sic) than Bonner County, Idaho.”
In declaring the vacancy, BCRCC officials said Bradshaw had sold his Cocolalla property, moved to Wood County, Texas, and last attended a Bonner County meeting in person Oct. 8. His home had been vacated and had been cleared of furniture and personal belongings. Knocks on the door went unanswered, and Herndon said the pair had had a conversation in which Bradshaw said he planned to step down in October.
Idaho Code states that a county commission officer shall be considered vacant through any of nine events, including a lack of residency. Residency is defined as "the principal or primary home or place of abode that is home or place in which his habitation is fixed and to which a person, whenever he is absent, has the present intention of returning after a departure or absence."
The code further notes that if an official moves and plans to make that location their home, then their residency in Idaho is considered abandoned.
The presence of any one of those nine events means that a vacancy exists, Herndon said in the resolution declaring the seat open.
In a third component of the resolution, BCRCC precinct committeemen further suggested that anyone adversely affected by a decision in which Bradshaw was the swing vote to seek reconsideration of that action "by the remaining qualified board members."
However, not all on the central committee agreed with Herndon’s characterization of the situation.
“It seems like a very broad overreach of the responsibilities of the chair to just determine that somebody’s vacant despite (them) showing up for meetings and despite the fact that the commissioner says that he is still living here — has a lease to be living here,” BCRCC Washington Precinct Committeeman Tom Bokowy said previously. “It seems very arbitrary that we are deciding that Bradshaw is a vacancy so we can fill his position for one month ... Saying ‘Oh, we now know that somebody intends to move,’ sure seems to be more of an opinion than a fact.”
Domke