Some Canyon County residents upset over dual mayor-commissioner dealings
By Sydney Kidd - BoiseDev Reporter GO TO BOISE DEV
November 7, 2023
Some seed farmers and rural residents in Canyon County are unhappy with Canyon County Commissioner and Greenleaf Mayor Brad Holton who they say is acting in both roles while performing his commissioner duties.
George Crookham of Crookham Company, John Hoadley of Summit Seeds, and Ron Amarel of Seed MC filed a request for reconsideration after the county approved a conditional rezoning of more than 145 acres of agricultural land to light industrial. The land is owned by the Judith Gross Family and located outside Greenleaf city limits, but within the city’s area of impact. There is no specific project planned for the property yet.
The group, along with former Canyon County Commissioner Keri Smith, is concerned about the rezone because of both Holton’s dual roles at two levels of local government — but also because it says the county’s process had problems in its legal notice and hearing procedure. The group is mulling the option of pursuing a judicial review of the decision.
In addition to the problems the group listed in its request for reconsideration, Hoadley said he is worried about the preservation of agricultural land in Canyon County. Hoadley has been a longtime advocate for agricultural preservation and said rapid development in Canyon County is leading to a pressing reduction in the amount of crops and seed the area can produce, which could be detrimental to his business and others.
Holton has been serving as Greenleaf’s mayor since 2004. He was elected to Canyon County Commissioner in 2022. He said both jobs are manageable because his mayoral job is part-time and there aren’t too many areas where decisions he makes as mayor would conflict with his commissioner role.
“There’s not a whole lot of areas that they do overlap. I think the public is genuinely confused about what a commissioner does, and what a mayor does, and how little that they actually collide,” Holton said.
But, he acknowledged the roles could overlap during land use hearings, which is what the reconsideration request says happened with the Judith Gross property.
To recuse, or not recuse
During the Aug. 2 meeting, Holton did not recuse himself from voting on the rezoning for the land owned by the Gross property but did disclose his identity as the mayor of Greenleaf and noted the city had sent in a letter weighing in on the issue.
The letter states the city is not opposed to the rezoning but made several recommendations to the commission regarding it — including requiring the future developer to perform a traffic impact study and excluding “utility facility” from the list of potential uses for the property. Holton said the recommendations in the letter did not disqualify him from being able to vote on the decision.
“They are not of a nature that would produce any kind of conflict of interest because of financial gain or loss,” Holton said at the hearing. Idaho Code states that conflicts of interest must be economic in nature, not just a situation where two roles or topics may be related to each other.
But Holton’s critics, including Smith whom Holton beat in last year’s GOP primary, are questioning this move because Holton previously recused himself from a different conditional rezone of over 48 acres within Greenleaf’s area of impact in May.
The 48-acre rezone had a second hearing in September due to the council making a decision different than what was recommended to them by the hearing examiner, per Canyon County policy. Holton began the September meeting by announcing an executive session. When he and the other commissioners returned, he announced he would be recusing himself once again. When encouraged by Commissioner Leslie Van Beek to provide a reason for his recusal, Holton said the recusal was recommended by legal counsel.
“The public finds it confusing that you can be elected to two offices at the same time and that conflict of interest in the state code has to do with direct financial gain to me or my primary relatives,” Holton said during the meeting. “I think that it would be impossible, if not impractical, to prove that. But I don’t want to cause legal expense or harm to the county so in this case I find it prudent to recuse myself.”
In an interview, Holton said the reason he recused himself on the 48-acre property was because the city had written a prejudicial statement about the application before Holton was elected to commissioner. He said the Gross property was different because the city’s statement was not prejudicial and he didn’t have a hand in writing it — that it solely came from members of his staff.
“There’s a lot of stuff that I delegate to them because they trust their judgment. And they don’t come to me and ask for permission to do everything. And we and we work well together as a team,” Holton said.
BoiseDev attempted to obtain the city’s letter on the 48-acre property Holton said was written before he was elected to the commissioner seat. However, the city clerk’s office said Greenleaf did not receive notice of the property owner’s request for a rezone until Jan. 11 of this year, a few days after Holton was sworn in. The office couldn’t find any city-issued comments on the property earlier than a letter dated March 2 — which is after Holton was elected to commissioner.
However, the clerk’s office email archive for 2022 was lost due to what the office said were technical issues that resulted in the computer containing the archive needing its hard drive wiped. The office said the county has begun meeting with cities about potential applications within the cities’ areas of impact before applications are received so it’s possible a conversation could have occurred before Jan. 11
The March 2 letter and the letter issued on the Gross property are very similar in content.
A request for reconsideration on the 48-acre property was filed on Monday, which barred Holton from answering BoiseDev’s follow-up questions on the letters, what makes them different, and the timing of their submission.
What does Idaho code say?
Stephen Miller, a law professor at the University of Idaho, said disclosure — like Holton noting he was the mayor of Greenleaf before the Gross hearing — goes a long way in smaller population states like Idaho.
“My feeling as to why Idaho has done that is, especially in smaller communities, it can be difficult to find enough qualified people to be on the commissions that don’t have some sort of relationships to people that are trying to build projects,” Miller said.
Holton said he is the sixth person in the State of Idaho who has served concurrently as a mayor and county commissioner.
Idaho code states that conflicts of interest must deal with financial gain. More specifically, it states: “A member or employee of a governing board, commission, or joint commission shall not participate in any proceeding or action when the member or employee or his employer, business partner, business associate, or any person related to him by affinity or consanguinity within the second degree has an economic interest in the procedure or action.”
Smith, who lost her commissioner’s seat to Holton in 2022, said she believes he does have a financial conflict of interest because Greenleaf benefits from the rezoning — and by extension, the perception of Holton’s job performance is more favorable.
“Greenleaf stands to financially benefit significantly from the conditions of approval that Brad Holton got on that case,” Smith said. “And he made sure that they included the city of Greenleaf specifically in the development agreement that the developer would work with Greenleaf on extending services.”
Holton vehemently pushed back against this argument, calling it “absolutely bizarre thinking.”
“This is a fascinating argument that, on the surface, is interesting. But when you get down to the mechanics, it’s ludicrous,” Holton said.
Smith also said she believes Holton showed bias in the case by using the term “we” multiple times when referring to the city’s ability to service the property. And was representing the city during the hearing.
What happens next?
To have legal standing in a court case, Miller said Smith would have to prove actual bias and not just the appearance of bias.
Smith said she, Crookham, and Hoadley are weighing their options and they could end up filing a suit for judicial review of the Judith Gross Family Trust decision.
This isn’t the first time Smith has had a problem with Holton and the commissioners since losing her seat. In August, Smith accused the commissioners of violating open meetings law during Canyon County’s budgeting process. She said she ultimately decided not to file a formal complaint because she didn’t want to “undo budgets.” Smith said her complaints both on open meetings and with Holton’s recusal don’t have to do with bitter feelings from losing an election.
“I truly just want a fair process for everyone. And what’s happening with this new commission, it’s sad to watch,” Smith said. “They keep telling people that they’re so transparent but they’re they’re truly not. They’re operating behind closed doors and making decisions that don’t follow code … I don’t want to undo things. I just want a fair process moving forward.”
Holton said he believes the request for reconsideration and subsequent actions taken by the group to draw attention to it is part of a larger effort to make the land use hearing into a bigger deal than he believes is necessary.
“When they continue to manufacture it and make it bigger than what it is and get innocent people whipped up into it, that’s a sad day,” Holton said. “Life’s too short to be doing this kind of negativity. There’s there’s real problems to solve. And it’s just unfortunate.”