Bradshaw responds to protection order at BOCC meeting

SANDPOINT — The Bonner County commissioners’ meeting got off to an irregular start Tuesday when Commissioner Steve Bradshaw gave an unprompted speech before the order of agenda was approved.

Bradshaw said before the meeting went any farther, he wanted to clear up what has been said about him regarding the civil protection order Commissioner Asia Williams has against him. A hearing was held Friday regarding the protection order, but it was neither overturned nor were any of the restrictions in place modified or lifted.

“For those of you that read Saturday’s paper, it said I threatened Miss Williams,” he said. “I want to tell you right now that’s a lie straight out of the pits of hell.”

Bradshaw said that Williams testified in court that she herself has never heard him threaten her. As for Bonner County Risk Manager Christian Jostlein, Bradshaw claimed that he had perjured himself by claiming that he heard Bradshaw threaten Williams.

“He lied under oath,” he said. “That’s between him and the judge.”

Because Bradshaw was speaking out of turn, Commissioner Luke Omodt attempted to guide the commissioner back to the agendized items, but was unsuccessful.

“I hear ‘transparency’ all the time here; we’re going to have some transparency this morning,” he said.

Bradshaw claimed that Jostlein may have been financially motivated to lie on the stand against the commissioner. Two days after the initial hearing, he said that someone pushed for Jostlein to be put over all the real property of Bonner County — which would mean a pay raise for the risk manager.

The District 1 commissioner again claimed that it is a documented fact that he never threatened Williams, and he is being lied about.

Omodt was about to call for a recess after again unsuccessfully redirecting the meeting to the published agenda when Bradshaw seemed to be finished speaking. The chairman asked Bradshaw if he was ready to get back to the scheduled meeting, to which Bradshaw nodded.

“Sure, as long as the public knows that I never threatened her and they lie,” he said. “I will stand behind that. These are all facts. I will stand behind that with every breath.”

While the order of agenda was being voted on and unanimously approved, Williams shared her disapproval of Bradshaw’s outburst and said she would not be addressing it because she felt it was inappropriate that it was allowed to happen in the first place.

“I find it noteworthy that you [Omodt] have allowed Mr. Bradshaw to behave that way while I can’t even give a public comment,” she said.

Following the agendized items and during the public comment portion of the meeting, Bonner County resident Susan Bowman accused Bradshaw of being willing to spend taxpayer money like “a drunken sailor.” His behavior, she said, was inviting people to sue the county.

Bowman added that calling a county employee a liar in public is “bizarre, it's a clown world.” When Bradshaw began to respond to her, Bowman demanded that he not interrupt her. At that point, Omodt attempted to step in to deescalate the situation, again to no avail.

Bowman loudly stated, “You will not interrupt me,” eight times in a row as Omodt tried to calm both parties down. When Omodt called for a recess to allow both sides to cool off, she told him he needed to “zip it” and stop taking over her public comment time.

“Thank you for your civility,” Omodt told Bowman as the meeting recessed.

When the meeting resumed, Bowman was allowed to finish the roughly two minutes of her comment time that remained, but Bradshaw had left and did not return to the meeting by the time the meeting recessed again for executive session.