Former Council Member Lisa Sánchez filed a lawsuit against Boise. What does it say?

Former Boise City Council Member Lisa Sánchez filed a lawsuit against Boise on Tuesday, arguing that the circumstances of her removal from her council seat were unlawful and asking the court to undo the appointment of her replacement. The lawsuit also asks the court to stop the council from taking further actions without reseating her.

Sánchez filed the lawsuit in Idaho’s Fourth Judicial District after Mayor Lauren McLean did not choose to appoint her to her former District 3 seat, instead choosing to appoint Latonia Haney Keith earlier this month.

The city determined that Sánchez vacated her seat in January, when she mistakenly moved to a new residence that was a few blocks outside of District 3, which covers the North End and Northwest Boise. Sánchez was elected to represent District 3 in 2021, though redistricting completed last year has since changed the bounds and reconfigured the names of Boise’s districts.

In a civil complaint, Sánchez’s lawyer, Wendy Olson, disputed he city’s contention that Sánchez lost her seat, and argued instead that city lawyers and council members “removed” her from her seat.

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office, Maria Weeg, declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Lawsuit details January meeting with council leadership

On Jan. 10, then-Council Member Elaine Clegg abruptly announced at the start of a City Council meeting that Sánchez may have ceased to be a proper representative of her district. Sanchez did not attend that evening’s meeting, but had been present at an afternoon meeting earlier that day.

Four days later, Council President Holli Woodings told the Idaho Statesman that city lawyers — who had also consulted with the Secretary of State’s Office — had determined Sánchez had left, and therefore lost, her seat.

“As much as it hurts, Lisa is no longer a qualified elector in her district, which means that she has vacated her seat under Idaho state law,” Woodings told the Statesman at the time.

Sánchez’s lawsuit details a meeting between city leadership that had happened earlier that day.

The meeting was between Sánchez, her lawyer, a Boise city lawyer, and council leadership, which includes Woodings and Council Member Jimmy Hallyburton.

“I guess I’d like to start by saying how much this situation sucks,” the complaint quotes Woodings as saying. Woodings then told Sánchez how the city had determined she had lost her seat, before discussing how to move forward, according to the complaint.

One option, the complaint says Woodings said, could be that Sánchez could be appointed to District 3, to serve out the rest of the term she had been elected for. Woodings said that option was “offered by the mayor’s office,” according to the complaint.

“Others in the room, and eventually Woodings, then backtracked,” the complaint says.

The complaint says Hallyburton said that appointing Sánchez “was not 100% for sure, and was not an obligation, (but that) ‘right now, it seems like that’s an offer that they want to make and honor the will of the voters.’”

The complaint also says that a Boise attorney said it was “the will of the people” to have Sánchez in the seat, and that “’unless (in) the next 30 days, there’s something very unusual that happens, the City would like to see the will of the people respected.’”

Woodings further stated, according to the complaint, that appointing Sánchez could be a “’good faith effort to help you get back into your position.’”

Hallyburton also told Sánchez that her being appointed was “a different option” from Sánchez challenging the city’s conclusion that Sánchez had vacated her seat in court, the complaint said.

Woodings and Hallyburton did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a previous email to the Statesman responding to a similar characterization of the Jan. 13 meeting enumerated in a letter from Olson, Hallyburton said that “I don’t believe this is how the conversation went and don’t believe it was communicated that if she ‘pursued her legal rights (by challenging the city in court), she would forfeit the option of having the mayor appoint her.’”

What does Idaho law say about her removal?

The lawsuit also alleges that Boise has not provided Sánchez with a legal opinion explaining its conclusion about her seat.

“There is no public record of who made the decision to remove Plaintiff Sánchez from the Boise City Council, when that decision was made, or why that decision was made,” the complaint says.

The Statesman has filed public records requests with the city asking for the communications city attorneys have sent to Sánchez. Those records requests have been mostly denied, with citations of personnel exemptions and exemptions for documents prepared in anticipation of litigation.

At the Jan. 13 meeting, the Boise attorney present referred to a section of Idaho code describing how Idahoans qualify to vote based on their residency, according to the complaint.

Elsewhere in Idaho law, it says that vacancies occur when incumbents cease to be residents of the district in which “the duties of (their) office are to be exercised.”

In the lawsuit, Sánchez claims that this statute did not apply to cities, and that Idaho courts have, in the past, required a showing that elected officials intended to leave their districts before determining that they vacated them.

In the November city elections, the city will be using a new map of geographic council districts. In the new map, the district covering the North End and Northwest Boise is called District 6 instead of District 3, and has somewhat different boundaries. The map with District 3 in the North End was used in the 2021 elections, when Sánchez was elected to her second term.

With or without her seat, Sánchez has indicated she plans to run again in November. She would face Hallyburton in the race to represent north Boise, as he has announced a reelection campaign.

Sánchez voted to approve both the 2021 map and the new map, which was adopted last year. Her lawsuit says she mistakenly thought the two districts for north Boise had the same boundaries.

Why was Sánchez not appointed?

It is unclear why McLean decided against appointing Sánchez to her district. In interviews with the Statesman this month, a majority of city council members indicated that they would likely not have voted to confirm her back onto the council.

Council members variously cited “honesty and integrity issues” with Sánchez, “false and misleading statements and sometimes lies,” the legal threats Sánchez has made towards the city in the months since she lost her seat, the accusations she has lodged against city staff members blaming them for the confusion over her district boundaries, and the precedent that reappointing her could set.

In the lawsuit, Olson accuses the council of retaliating against Sánchez for how she responded to losing her seat. The complaint cites a recent comment Clegg made to the Statesman: ““I think a different tone would have, frankly, meant a different outcome.”

In recent months, Sánchez was the subject of a campaign finance complaint, after she spent more than $14,000 in campaign funds in a non-election year. The Ada County Elections office later cleared her of any legal violations.

Before losing her seat, Sánchez also clashed with other council members. In October, she accused other members of leaving her out of discussions and a study about affordable housing — claims other council members denied. The organizer of the housing study, from the Urban Land Institute, later emailed Sánchez to say that all council members had initially been invited to the study, but that Sánchez had not responded.

After losing her seat, she also accused Woodings of being involved in her housing decision. At the time, Woodings told the Statesman that she had been concerned about the ethical implications of how Sánchez had framed her search for new housing at a public meeting, when Sánchez had said that one of her constituents had “offered” her housing. Olson has said that Sánchez has always paid market rates for her housing while on the council.

According to the lawsuit, an outside lawyer representing the city reached out to Sánchez — also through her lawyer — shortly before the deadline for applications to note that her application had not yet been received. Sánchez had, according to the complaint, submitted her materials shortly before then.

Sánchez was selected as a finalist for the District 3 seat, and interviewed by McLean.

The lawsuit also notes that an outside attorney representing the city told Sánchez’s lawyer that the interview “had gone well.”

The lawsuit also says Haney Keith, who now sits on the council after being appointed earlier this month, is not legitimately on the council. McLean appointed Haney Keith to serve out the remainder of the District 3 term.

Another new council member, Colin Nash, was appointed this month to fill Elaine Clegg’s seat. Clegg has left to council to lead Valley Regional Transit.