Emails, interview shed light on Canyon County officials’ complaints about commissioner
Records obtained by the Idaho Statesman through a public records request show that eight Canyon County elected officials corresponded through email to write a letter asking Commissioner Leslie Van Beek to resign.
Over the last two months, some Canyon County residents have pleaded with commissioners to release details about the allegations made against Van Beek in the February letter. Details in redacted records obtained by the Statesman add to the story, as do comments from six of the eight officials in an interview.
The eight officials say Van Beek has tried to “dig up dirt” on other county officials, accused some of them of illegal behavior and deceit, and violated confidential executive-session information about personnel, among other things.
The eight officials who helped draft and signed the letter were Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Taylor, Commissioners Keri Smith and Pam White, Sheriff Kieran Donahue, Clerk Chris Yamamoto, Assessor Brian Stender, Treasurer Tracie Lloyd and Coroner Jennifer Crawford. All, like Van Beek, are Republicans.
“I appreciate the unity, and although I’m apprehensive regarding the outcome (she’s so volatile), it’s absolutely time for us to do something and we truly needed a united front and we have one,” Smith wrote Jan. 31, shortly before she hand-delivered the letter to Van Beek.
Six of the elected officials, excluding Smith and White, waived their attorney-client privilege to have their emails released to the Statesman. Parts of the records the Statesman received were redacted when they related to personnel issues or when the commissioners did not waive the privilege.
Claims Van Beek worked against county in pending litigation
In an interview Friday, the six officials outlined what they said had been three years of misconduct, false accusations against them and violations of trust.
The six said dozens of things contributed to their belief that Van Beek was not fit to be commissioner, but they said the problem came to a head when they found out Van Beek had been working with “adversarial attorneys” against the county in pending litigation.
Van Beek denied the allegation that she was working with attorneys suing the county.
“I categorically deny the allegation,” she said in a text message. “It absolutely never happened.”
The six raised other concerns, including:
▪ ‘Digging up dirt.’ Donahue, the sheriff, said Van Beek “reached out to past employees to try to dig up dirt on the sheriff.”
“That is inexcusable and unconscionable, that in her position, she would bring undue liability and expense through litigation to the county that she’s sworn to protect,” he said.
Yamamoto, the clerk, said he “cannot work with someone that’s accusing me of hiding money and not telling the truth.”
“And I tell you what,” Yamamoto said, “my good name being disparaged like this is not good.”
▪ Disclosing confidential information. The elected officials said Van Beek had spoken to people outside of closed, or executive session, meetings about what occurred in those meetings.
Van Beek said she corrected an inappropriate personnel action that happened in executive session. Van Beek said in order to correct the action, she had to reference the problem that was created in executive session.
Yamamoto said that when the northern Caldwell urban renewal district was up for approval, Van Beek broke the confidentiality of executive sessions by speaking to Caldwell’s urban renewal board about what was said in executive session.
“That is exactly the moment when I decided I am done with her in executive session — she can’t be trusted,” Yamamoto said.
Yamamoto, Donahue and Taylor said they avoid being in executive session meetings with Van Beek unless they are crucial to county business.
False claims, confidentiality violations, thwarting county business
Commissioner Smith’s Jan. 31 email lists five examples of Van Beek’s alleged misconduct. She said Van Beek:
▪ Engaged a mediator without authorization. Van Beek failed to follow the proper procedure when arranging for a mediator she knew to mediate differences between a judge and a county employee.
Smith said Van Beek did not have the authority to hire a mediator at county expense without her two fellow commissioners’ involvement. Van Beek should have brought her mediation proposal to the full commission first, Smith said.
Smith and Commissioner White directed the commissioners’ administrative staff to send a letter to the mediator to halt the mediation, but Van Beek told the staffers to hold on to the letter while Van Beek approached the mediator herself. That put the commissioners’ staff in an awkward position, Smith said, because the staff needed to send the letter but Van Beek told them to wait.
In an email to the Statesman, Van Beek said she did not withhold the commissioners’ letter to the mediator.
Neither the judge, nor the county employee, nor the nature of their differences was disclosed.
▪ Tried to block a needed change order. Van Beek made a big deal out of a request from the Canyon County Fair staff to approve a contractor’s change order that would allow ground and soil work during the winter months on the $7.6 million Fair Expo Building under construction at the county fairgrounds.
Smith said the cost amounted to less than 0.004% of a change to the total construction costs. Van Beek’s request to get a deeper explanation of the cost further delayed the building that was already behind schedule, the elected officials said.
Van Beek told the Statesman that she would “always inquire about and object to excessive costs and thereby protect the taxpayer.”
▪ Shared personnel information. Van Beek shared confidential information subject to attorney-client privilege with a county employee who was named in a complaint against other county employees. No details about the employees or the nature of the complaint were disclosed.
▪ Tried to get reporters to report on county workplace problems. Van Beek had multiple calls with the media trying to get news outlets to report on topics relating to a hostile work environment in the county and discrimination claims.
Van Beek told the Statesman that she speaks to reporters on a regular basis regarding issues the public deserves to know.
▪ Made false claims against three elected officials. Van Beek alleged that the three officials paid settlement agreements through payroll as a cover-up for employee terminations.
In one of the emails released to the Statesman, Taylor, the prosecutor, wrote that Donahue, the sheriff; Yamamoto, the clerk; and Taylor were accused by Van Beek of criminal or unethical conduct.
In the Statesman interview, the elected officials said they witnessed Van Beek’s accusations of criminal and unethical conduct against Donahue, Yamamoto and Taylor.
Van Beek told the Statesman that termination payments and settlement agreements should be disclosed to commissioners before they are paid. “This assures that such decisions are made that are in the public’s best interest,” Van Beek said.
Expenditure questions cause county to be late on payments
The elected officials have additional complaints about Van Beek:
▪ Donahue wrote that Van Beek submits “endless requests for information that has already been presented.”
Donahue said in the Statesman interview that Van Beek repeatedly questions budget requests from county offices. After a question has been answered the first time, he said she asks a second and third time.
“The first time a question gets asked, it’s answered, the second time it gets asked, it’s answered,” said Taylor. “And then we’re down to repeating the same issue over and over.”
▪ Donahue said the officials will not “tolerate her accusations or ill treatment of county employees.”
▪ Yamamoto said the county has been late to pay bills because Van Beek holds on to expenditure requests past their due date. He said Van Beek holds the requests before forwarding them to either of the other two commissioners to sign.
“It makes the county delinquent in getting the bills paid on time for expenditures that have been approved in the budget,” Taylor told the Statesman. “She is pocket-vetoing these and potentially incurring late charges that potentially could hurt our credit rating at some point.”
Van Beek did not attend discussion of call for her to quit
In a public meeting April 4, Smith said Van Beek was not present at one of the executive sessions the other two county commissioners held where the call for her resignation was being discussed.
Van Beek told the Statesman that she did not “remember receiving an invitation to an executive session to discuss those items.”
The elected officials told the Statesman that all elected officials are invited to executive sessions, and that Van Beek was out of town at a conference when the particular executive session took place.
Smith’s Jan. 31 email was one of over 20 emails exchanged among the eight elected officials, excluding Van Beek.
The emails also indicate that the eight officials heard from colleagues in other jurisdictions that Van Beek voiced her suspicions to Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.
This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
