Brannon Amends City Election Suit

At OpenCDA.com, Bill McCrory reports that losing challenger Jim Brannon has filed an amendment to his lawsuit challenging the 2009 Coeur d’Alene city elections, dropping Kootenai County, County Clerk Dan English, and ex-county election administrator Deedie Beard from the list of defendants. The amended suit also seeks an injunction preventing the city from “installing” new City Council members at its first meeting in January 2010. Seems Brannon is concerned with the “legality of business conducted in the interim” should he get his way and all or part of the election be voided. The action was filed Thursday, according to McCrory. ( You can read McCrory’s post here. ) McCrory ends his report with a prediction: “We are sure that some people are going to mount a propaganda attack accusing Brannon of forcing the City to ‘waste’ money defending what they will intentionally and deceptively mischaracterize as ‘frivolous.’”

DFO: There’s more to this story. McCrory failed to mention a cover letter from Brannon attorney Starr Kelso in which Kelso suggested a private preliminary meeting to discuss the issues in the case and avoid acrimony. I’ll post about this later this morning.

Question: Why would Brannon drop English, Beard, and the county from the lawsuit when the county ran the election? Do these guys know what they’re doing?