Quiet BOCC meeting disrupted by state rep. candidate

SANDPOINT — A relatively quiet meeting was disrupted when resident and state representative candidate Spencer Hutchings walked to the front of the room while others were giving public comments, demanding to be allowed to speak.

When Hutchings refused to return to his seat, it forced a recess to be called until he complied.

Hutchings had been attending most of the meeting via Zoom, with his virtual hand raised, requesting to speak. Commissioner Luke Omodt, the current chair of the board, typically allows residents who have shown up in person to speak first, then moves on to those who have signed up via Zoom.

Omodt was responding to an in-person public commenter’s questions when Hutchings entered the room with his virtual hand still raised on Zoom.

Hutchings walked to the front of the room in the middle of Omodt’s response and attempted to grab the public comment sign-up sheet from Omodt, who pulled it away. The commissioner told Hutchings not to grab the sheet and to sit down, to which he refused.

“Are you denying me my right to speak?” Hutchings asked. “I’ve had my hand up the whole time.”

Omodt continued to tell Hutchings to sit down, and he continued to refuse.

“I’ll sit down if you’re going to call me; if you’re not going to call me, I would like to ...” he began, but was cut off by multiple people in the audience yelling for him to sit down and stop disrupting the meeting.

When Hutchings remained standing at the front of the room and attempted to engage in conversation with the commissioners, Omodt called for a recess and told Hutchings they could speak in the hall, but he would not be allowed to continue his behavior in the meeting.

“You can grandstand at another time, Spencer,” he said.

When the meeting resumed and Hutchings was allowed to speak, he began by accusing Omodt of trying to make things difficult and calling the commissioner a tyrant. When Omodt attempted to ask him to state his name and if he was a Bonner County resident for the record, per county code, Hutchings cut him off, questioning if the commissioner planned to engage in dialogue with him while he spoke.

“Is this how you’re going to behave down in Boise?” Commissioner Steve Bradshaw asked.

Hutchings ignored Bradshaw’s question and continued, asking the commissioners why a fair board audit had not yet been completed. He also asked questions about former fair manager Darcey Smith’s laptop. Bradshaw told him the county prosecutor would have answers to all his questions.

“If the prosecutor has all the answers, when is the public going to hear about it?” Hutchings asked.

Hutchings also questioned if the county was selling the data from the signup sheets. If not, he said that the county needs to provide a privacy policy to let residents know that their information is not being sold.

“Bonner County does not sell information, but it is a public building, and those are all public records,” Bradshaw said. “Anybody can request that.”

Omodt chimed in regarding the fair board audit, saying that maybe for the first time in the fair board’s existence, the external auditor will be looking at the entire scope of the county, following years of the assumption that the fair board should not fall under the regular county audit.

That external auditor, he said, has already been in contact with the fair board members as well as their bookkeeper.

“He will be working with them next month and the results will be forthcoming,” he said. “… In regards to the audit of Bonner County internally by the external auditor, we will again comply with state law.”