Police group calls on Joe Rodriguez to resign

The local Fraternal Order of Police membership is calling for Nez Perce County Sheriff Joe Rodriguez to resign immediately.

In response to the group’s announcement, Rodriguez said he was not going to resign and that “perhaps (me) being the only local candidate of color is an issue for these people.”

The Nez Perce County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 32 decided after a vote by its members to ask Rodriguez to “hold himself accountable” to the sheriff’s office and public by resigning immediately because of the allegations that he released confidential personnel information to the anonymous administrators of the Facebook page LC Valley Corruption this summer.

Of the FOP’s 41 members, 33 voted in favor of requesting Rodriguez resign immediately, six voted no and two members abstained from voting, said Rod Taylor, president of FOP Lodge No. 32.

“I am not going to resign as sheriff,” Rodriguez said Tuesday night. “This group must be worried about its credibility by sending out this sort of statement one week before the election.”

Rodriguez, a Republican, faces independent candidate Bryce Scrimsher in next week’s general election. Rodriguez is seeking a third term.

“(FOP) has reviewed allegations and evidence that Sheriff Rodriguez has released confidential personnel information to the anonymous administrators of a Facebook page,” the FOP statement said. “After that review, it appears that Sheriff Rodriguez has disclosed confidential, personnel information, to an unknown person(s). His apparent reckless disregard of employee protections under Idaho law and Nez Perce County Policy suggest to FOP a lack of accountability and a lack of integrity, and may indicate retaliation against those employees.”

The FOP statement said that employees at the sheriff’s office “deserve support on the job, specifically a work environment that is free of harassment, retaliation and freedom from a now-reasonable fear that their confidential information will be breached or released.”

The FOP statement warned the actions by Rodriguez have the potential to create “employee complaints, which in turn, costs the taxpayers in the form of settlements and litigation.”

“The sheriff’s office is fully staffed and I have confidence in my ability to handle personnel issues and the other duties as the sheriff,” Rodriguez said. “This small group of people should not deter the citizens of Nez Perce County from seeing through (the) haze of this smear campaign.

“I prefer to look at the positive and the future,” Rodriguez added. “My opponent and his group can focus on the negative. I work for the people of Nez Perce County.”

Nez Perce County Prosecutor Justin Coleman terminated legal representation of Rodriguez on matters of personnel and general management Oct. 1. The decision “was based on messaged correspondence between Sheriff Rodriguez and an anonymous Facebook page in which the sheriff named and disclosed numerous employees’ confidential information,” the county said at the time in a news release. Some of the information allegedly came from employees’ personnel files, creating liability for the county.

Because of “the continuing behaviors of Sheriff Rodriguez which have now resulted in the withdrawal of legal counsel, I am compelled to enact the attached endorsement effective immediately,” Idaho Counties Risk Management Program Executive Director Timothy L. Osborne said Oct. 6 in announcing a new graduated deductible scheme that charges $15,000 for the first legal claim against Rodriguez and the sheriff’s office and then increases with each subsequent claim by $15,000 until the deductible reaches $60,000.

The graduated deductible scheme cannot be waived and was put in place specifically for Rodriguez’s office because of the release of confidential personnel information.

Rodriguez and his opponent in next week’s election, Scrimscher, have a history, with the sheriff firing his former chief deputy in November 2018.

Scrimsher said he was fired because he guided another employee through the process of filing a sexual harassment claim against the sheriff through the Idaho Human Rights Commission. The employee’s sexual harassment claim against the sheriff was settled for $68,500. Scrimsher filed a notice to sue the sheriff for his firing, but the tort claim has not been filed in court.

Wells may be contacted at mwells@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2275.