By Kirk Chandler
There is a rumble in the county having to do with our new prosecuting attorney, True Pearce. He was elected by a large majority of the voters in Washington County last November. The promise he made was that he would follow the law and give council and prosecute according to the law and that is exactly what he is doing. Those that are upset about his advice and direction in the county are those that are used to doing things their way, which if it is not according to the law, so what. The biggest and most controversial thing the County Commissioners deal with is land use issues and supervising county employees.
County government is under the Idaho State Statue. Counties gain the authority to be a local government from the state. The Land Use Planning Act (Title 67, chapter 65 is the direction that the county uses to govern land use decisions. In 67-6502 it states; The purpose of this act shall be to promote the health, safety and general welfare of the people of the state of Idaho as follows: (a) To protect property rights while making accommodations for other types of development….
The information provided by Dylan Brown and Ron Jeager in the June 26 Weiser Signal American was an effort to smear True Pearce for doing what he was elected to do. Idaho Code 67-6504 says that if the Commissioners elect not to do planning and zoning they can form a P&Z commission. They are to help the commissioners with land use decisions, to gather information so the commissioners can make the final decision. They are not to demand the commissioners do what they want. The Chairman Ron Yeager said, in a meeting that the citizens in the county have property rights if the P&Z gives them property rights. They have completely overstepped their authority. They feel like the P&Z run the county and the commissioners are to do what they tell them. I don’t know about you but I didn’t elect the P&Z to make the rules and code for the county. The P&Z commission feel like they can do whatever they want. The P&Z board is made up mostly of people that benefit from the decisions they make. Our P&Z administrator told several people a couple weeks ago that she was not giving out any more building permits until the commissioners did want they wanted them to do. Are the employees and appointed committee supposed to be telling the employer what to do? Commissioners Harberd and Marvin are letting them do this. They have been advised by the Prosecutor True Peace to correct this and they have not, they did what P&Z demanded. The problem we have right now is that our county commissioners are not running the county, the P&Z is. All the bad mouthing and slander aimed at True Pearce is merely a group of people that don’t want to follow the law and are throwing a fit.
