A Pocatello city councilman said he received a threatening phone call over the weekend regarding a proposed non-discrimination ordinance. But the caller says he wasn’t making any threats — just sharing his opinion on an important issue. 

Councilman Jim Johnston said he received a call on his cell phone on Saturday, and the local businessman on the phone told him that he would take his business to Idaho Falls if Johnston didn’t vote in favor of the non-discrimination ordinance that the Pocatello City Council is set to discuss on Thursday. 

Johnston said he felt the call was a threat and it frustrated him. He said it’s not fair to target local businesses for decisions made by city officials. 

“I personally think you should not take economic sanctions against an elected official for doing what he is elected to do,” he said, adding that he won’t let the call impact his decision, when he makes it, in anyway. “It helps me want to do (what I feel is) right.”

But local businessman Kevin Lish, who told the Idaho State Journal that he made the call on Saturday, said he had no intention of threatening Johnston. 

“I was not threatening Mr. Johnston; I am in no position to threaten anyone,” Lish said. 

Lish said he was just trying to share his opinion with an elected official. He is gay and he wants to see the ordinance — which would prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and other public accommodations based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression — pass. 

Lish said many corporations already have non-discrimination policies in place, and he personally feels it’s appropriate for those organizations to support the towns that feel the same way they do. That’s all he was trying to say to Johnston when he made the call, Lish said. 

Lish was impressed by a public panel that met last week in Idaho Falls to discuss a proposed ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The panel included representatives from area businesses and churches as well as a mental health professional and a gay man, and most of those who attended the event supported the proposal. 

Pocatello, which is further along in the process, has had more debate on both sides of the fence. 

Johnston said he received more than 40 emails on Monday alone from people for and against the ordinance. 

“It occupies a lot of my time. I read a lot of emails and I study the issue to the best of my ability,” he said.

That’s why Johnston was frustrated by Lish’s phone call. He said the city council, along with many others including Idaho State University officials and community members, work hard to make the city a better place. 

“This undermines all of the good that is being done by hundreds of people. That bothers me a lot,” Johnston said. 

Still, Lish said he was simply trying to express his opinion to an elected official when he made the phone call.

“Either I wasn’t communicating well or he didn’t listen to what I had to say,” Lish said, adding that he was just trying to get Johnston to understand that if Pocatello adopts the ordinance, it will simply be following in the footsteps of corporations and other organizations that have had this type of protection in place for decades. 

He feels it’s important for cities to get on board because not everyone has a corporation to protect them from discrimination. 

Still, Johnston believes elected officials, not businesses, should make the decisions when it comes to what is best for the city.

“City decisions should be based solely on what’s best,” Johnston said.