CHUBBUCK — Local residents can typically expect a rather quiet and uncontentious election season in Pocatello’s smaller northern neighbor, but talk of a recently resolved federal lawsuit could turn the Chubbuck mayoral race into a powder keg.

Chubbuck Mayor Kevin England recently spoke to the Idaho State Journal for the first time about a 2022 lawsuit filed against him and the city by his election opponent, Rodney Burch.

England, who’s been mayor for nearly 12 years, said Chubbuck voters need to know about the lawsuit that made his “life a living nightmare for three and a half years.”

Burch, Chubbuck’s former public works director, defends his lawsuit as necessary, maintaining he was forced to resign over a differing vision of what’s best for the city. Despite losing in court, Burch says England lacks the necessary integrity to keep serving as mayor.

Burch’s lawsuit, which alleged First Amendment violations and violations of the Idaho Protection of Public Employees Act, was dismissed through summary judgment in federal court in May and upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July.

Burch alleged retaliation for placing a yard sign supporting England’s opponent Dan Heiner in the November 2021 election and advocating for a city administrator or city manager position to address what he viewed as waste and mismanagement in Chubbuck city government.

Using a paid professional to run Chubbuck’s city government would have been a departure from the city’s longtime structure of electing a mayor to oversee City Hall.

Burch claimed England asked for his resignation after the 2021 election and, when Burch refused to resign, sought City Council removal.

Though the Council declined, Burch alleged England stripped him of key duties, making conditions intolerable and forcing his March 2022 resignation.

The 9th Circuit ruled Burch’s yard sign was protected speech as a private citizen, but his criticisms and city administrator advocacy were unprotected because they were made pursuant to his official duties as a senior city employee. After reviewing all the evidence, the courts sided with England and the city in concluding Burch was not forced to resign.

England maintains Burch voluntarily resigned, pointing to Burch’s resignation letter as evidence as well as the court rulings on the matter.

“There was never any talk about resignation,” England said. “I never thought about it, I never asked for it, and certainly never demanded Rodney’s resignation. Never happened.”

England said after the November 2021 election, when Burch had supported Heiner, he tried to reconcile with Burch.

“I thought we were working like a team and things were going well. I wanted to get back to that,” England said. “So I brought him in. I said, ‘Rodney, how do you see us going forward?’ And he said, ‘Well, one of us has got to go. And you just won an election.’ What an attitude.”

Burch maintains he never made such a statement.

The two candidates offer sharply conflicting accounts of their personal interactions and motivations — accounts that in many cases cannot be independently verified.

The federal and appeals court rulings that Burch was not forced to resign provided a legal verdict on the matter, though there’s clearly lingering bitterness.

England said Burch has been telling people he dropped the lawsuit, but both candidates told the Journal during recent interviews it was fully adjudicated.

“He did not drop the lawsuit,” England said. “He appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and when they told him there’s nothing here, there was nowhere else to go. We had four federal judges who told him, ‘You have no case.’ That’s how it ended.”

Burch said, “The case wasn’t dismissed, I didn’t get rid of it. After appeal, the courts ruled in favor of Kevin and the city that my concerns were not protected.”

England said the city’s insurer, Idaho Counties Risk Management Program, hired attorneys from Hall Angell & Associates in Idaho Falls, who pursued a summary judgment strategy that proved successful but prevented him from publicly defending himself.

“I felt like I was defending myself against lies, and I just was getting tired of it,” England said. “Let me just tell you this — he has nothing.”

The courts agreed and England said it’s important for Chubbuck residents to be fully aware of Burch’s failed lawsuit against the city before casting their ballots on election day.

The core of England’s frustration centers on what he says is Burch’s attempt to undermine the electoral process by advocating for a city administrator or manager position to oversee city government instead of an elected mayor.

“I think it’s really important this community knows the man who’s running for mayor has no confidence in the electorate,” England said. “He believes that if we depend on the electorate for our direction forward, we’ll never get it done, and that was so offensive to me.”

England pointed to a document from Burch titled “Options in Process,” in which he threatened to go to the City Council if England didn’t support the city administrator proposal. According to England, Burch wrote that he had council members “ready to act” and warned that if the change wasn’t made, “it’s going to make you look ugly.”

The “Options in Process” document contained Burch’s criticisms of England’s performance, including allegations that England lacked commitment, was unable to hold staff accountable, had no clear vision, and contributed to what staff described as a “toxic work environment.” It also proposed mechanisms for implementing a city administrator or manager structure.

England said he felt threatened by the document and considered it “cause for removal” in terms of terminating Burch, presenting it to the City Council during an executive session where Burch’s removal was discussed. The city used the “Options in Process” document to argue in court that England’s actions in redistributing some of Burch’s responsibilities following the 2021 election were justified by what it characterized as Burch’s insubordination and unprotected speech — an argument the federal and appeals courts ultimately accepted.

“He threatened me here,” England said. “He told me, ‘If we set this up right, elections won’t make a bit of difference.’”

England maintains he was never supportive of the city manager or city administrator concept because it takes voters out of the equation in terms of deciding who will lead the city.

“I never once was on board with changing into a city manager,” England said. “I told (Burch) no right up front.”

Burch, however, said he prepared the “Options in Process” document in May 2021 to share his thoughts about how city government could be better and believed he had a good enough relationship with England to have these conversations.

“That started out as a pretty good conversation between Kevin and I and our human resources director, to the point that Kevin had instructed us to assemble job descriptions. What does this look like in other communities?” Burch said. “I’m not sure what triggered Kevin, but he came back to us and said, ‘I don’t support this anymore,’ at which point we stopped our efforts.”

Burch disagrees with England’s opposition to having a city manager or city administrator overseeing Chubbuck’s city government.

“I agree that it is a positive thing to insulate the day-to-day operations from popularity contests,” Burch said, viewing professional city management as beneficial for Chubbuck.

Burch clarified what he sees as an important distinction about the courts’ rulings regarding his lawsuit.

“The judgment is about my rights and protections,” Burch said. “The judgment is not about the issues that were raised. The court was not asked to nor did it offer any opinion: Is there waste? Is there abuse or misuse? Those were never factual parts of the case.”

Burch explained that his Whistleblower Act claim failed because his senior position meant his concerns weren’t legally protected when reported only to England rather than to the City Council.

“My interpretation and our attorney’s is that my position at the city included me needing to look out for waste and misuse. It was part of my job description and I answered directly to Kevin,” Burch said. “I found it interesting that if I would have reported it to the council or to my peers, it would be different, but I only reported it to Kevin.”

The courts threw out Burch’s whistleblower claim because they determined he was not forced to resign and his claim occurred after the statute of limitation had expired.

In his lawsuit Burch detailed specific concerns about city operations, including the process involved with planning Chubbuck’s $17 million annual budget, of which $12 million was under his purview as public works director.

“I never had any input into the budget process, yet I was held accountable to meet those standards,” Burch said. “The budget process was a two-page document that took the previous year’s budget and showed the allowable 3 percent increase by Idaho code and that was it.”

England challenges those allegations, saying if Burch had found actual waste in city operations, he would have presented proof in court.

“If he’d had some proof of waste in our city, he’d have been all over them with it,” England said. “He actually said during the discovery that he reported that waste in council meetings. Show it to me. I sit over those council meetings. Nothing gets on an agenda that I don’t put on an agenda, and there was never any reported waste.”

Burch also raised concerns about England’s integrity, citing an incident detailed in his April 2022 exit interview letter involving a city employee who has visible tattoos.

According to Burch’s letter written after his resignation, the employee “arrived at work and found full arm-length white gloves placed on her keyboard” within her first two weeks of employment. Burch wrote that he reviewed security camera footage showing England placing the gloves after hours and confronted England without initially revealing he knew England was responsible.

“During that meeting, he completely agreed that this type of behavior was not acceptable, and our organization would not tolerate it,” Burch wrote. After showing England the footage, “he indicated the gloves were a gift to (the employee) and he thought her daughters could use them. I do not believe that was the intent.”

{p dir=”ltr”}Burch said the incident reflects England’s character.

England confirmed he placed the gloves on the employee’s desk but strongly disputes Burch’s characterization of his intent, saying they were toy gloves his granddaughter no longer wanted.

“I knew that this gal had two little daughters, and I had every intention of talking to her about it,” England said, adding that he left them on her desk on a Saturday intending to discuss it later.

“If I had to do it again, I’d have thrown those gloves away,” England said about the incident, noting he spoke with the employee to clarify his intent.

England said he and the employee have worked together at Chubbuck City Hall for five years since and have an excellent relationship.

“See what he’s doing is he’s putting a hit on my character that’s based on nothing,” England said about Burch. “They have footage that shows that I put that on her desk. They don’t have any idea what my intent was.”

England said he’s speaking out now only because Burch is running for mayor.

“If he was not running, I would have never said a word about this to anybody,” England said. “But I cannot allow the community to not understand what he’s done. They need to know that he sued this city.”

While England said he’s forgiven Burch personally, he believes voters deserve the full story.

“I’ve forgiven Rodney. I absolutely have. I sat next to him the other day and shook his hand and I’m fine,” England said. “But I cannot allow him to sit in this chair without people knowing what he did.”

Burch said he has intentionally worked to refrain from making his lawsuit a critical aspect of the mayoral race. He questions England’s motivations and timing for making it a campaign issue weeks before the election.

“He’s trying to clear his name, but no one’s raising an issue that he needs to clear his name from,” Burch said. “We’re not making this a campaign issue. We’re not making it a private issue. I see no evidence that anyone is questioning that. So that’s what makes the timing really suspect for me.”

While the courts have made legal determinations about the lawsuit, many of the personal interactions and motivations described by both candidates remain much of a “he said, he said,” with both men offering sharply different interpretations.

Chubbuck voters will be asked to render their verdict on Nov. 4.