Larry Allen Goes Out With A Bang Farewell Statement Provokes One Last Fight

When they entered office two years ago, Larry Allen and Bud Mueller launched a storm of controversy at their first Bonner County commissioners meeting.

As Allen departs, the storm clouds linger.

The last meeting of the current Board of Commissioners went smoothly enough Thursday until Allen said his goodbyes.

“We’ve lost the ability in Bonner County to freely exchange ideas and debate issues,” Allen said. “At times, petty bickering has gotten in the way.”

His statement prompted a diatribe from local government critic Patty Douglas, who refused to sit down despite pleas to do so.

“We all know who the instigator of the bickering has been,” she said accusingly. Fed up, Allen moved to adjourn the meeting.

With Douglas shouting her objections, the commissioners left the room.

All in all, it was a fairly typical meeting.

But after Brian Orr is sworn in as a commissioner Monday, some of the rancor that’s dogged the county’s day to day business may subside.

The favored whipping boy of the county’s most diehard watchdogs will no longer be in office. Allen’s departure also eliminates the public animosity between Allen and Mueller, the commission chairman.

The two were swept into office by the same anti-government sentiment, but they soon parted ways. Allen had change of heart after entering office, and discovered that the state of county government wasn’t as bad as he originally had thought, he said.

Orr won the Nov. 8 election against Allen with 61 percent of the vote - one of the widest margins in the county races.

“He went back on his word, what he promised he was going to,” Mueller said of Allen.

“I think the public recognized the problem there and took care of it.”

Allen sees the problem as Mueller and his sympathizers, who regularly attend commissioner meetings.

Allen has stomped out of meetings before when he thought Mueller was allowing matters to get out of hand.

“The board needs a chairman that can actually conduct meetings,” Allen said. “I don’t think we had that the last couple of years. I don’t think he (Mueller) wants to conduct meetings.”

The commissioners, including Mueller, expect that at the reorganization meeting Monday, the chairmanship will go to either Orr or Dale Van Stone, both Democrats.

“When I came in, Larry and I, we thought alike, I thought. We took control of things,” Mueller said. “Dale and Brian, they should do the same thing.”

Orr and Van Stone have some of the same ideas about what needs to happen in county government.

“I’d like to bring back the image that Bonner County is a good place to live and work,” Orr said. But he’s not going to suggest any big changes immediately.

“I don’t have any plans to set the county on fire,” Orr said. “For the first six months or so, I’m going to go slow, do my homework.”

Addressing the lack of a building department is one job the new board is likely to tackle. Allen and Mueller voted to eliminate the department their first day in office two years ago.

“How much of a structure do we want in place?” Van Stone asked. “How we go about dealing with it will probably be a committee of some sort to determine our needs out there.”

In his statement, Allen said he still believes that eliminating the building department was the right thing to do, but some functions may need to be restored, he said.

“I tried to bring some of those things to the table, but was branded a liberal and a traitor for that,” he said Thursday.

“I’ve never willfully or knowingly been dishonest in anything that I’ve done,” he said. Rather, the Bonner County Taxpayers Coalition was dishonest when it published its preelection tabloid, Allen said.

The publisher of the tabloid, Edgar Steele, tape-recorded Allen’s remarks at Thursday’s meeting.

“The persons responsible for the tabloid told me in no uncertain terms they would destroy me,” Allen said, his voice breaking a little. “Well, the joke’s on them. I’m wounded. I’m a little more cynical, but I’m not destroyed.”

Allen has a new job, managing Elite Design and Manufacturing in Priest River. The company prints custom pads for computer keyboards. Allen also has applied to sit on the school board for the newly formed West Bonner County School District.

Orr will remain mayor of Oldtown until he resigns at Monday night’s city council meeting.