City dispute at Palouse: Prosecutor rejects request for intimidation charges

Whitman County Prosecutor Denis Tracy turned down a reported Palouse case of intimidation of a public official in late December after finding no crime had been committed.

Former Palouse councilman Mark Bailey raised the issue by claiming Palouse resident Jim Farr had allegedly intimidated Mayor Michael Echanove by trying to leverage an alleged slip-up at Echanove’s WSU job to get land developed at Palouse.

Farr and friend Steve McGehee of Palouse had learned through public records requests that the mayor had been using WSU job time for city business.

In an interview with the Gazette Jan. 15, Farr confirmed he is working to get the Palouse mayor removed from office.

“I told him (Echanove) I was going to remove him from office,” Farr stated. “The next day we [Farr and McGehee] started our proceedings to do that. We are really going to do that,”

Tracy said Bailey’s allegation does not qualify as intimidation of a public official because Farr had not done anything illegal by complaining to the WSU auditor’s office.

“If there was a threat to do something not legal, that would be something that could be looked at further,” Tracy explained.

In an e-mail to Tracy Jan. 4, Bailey alleged Farr told him more than four months earlier, Aug. 16, that if Echanove didn’t let him develop water and sewer lines like he wanted, he would have Echanove “thrown out office.”

Farr confirmed to the Gazette those are his intentions for Echanove.

When asked if he felt Farr had tried coerce him into changing procedures for Farr’s service line plan, Echanove said yes.

“I have no magic wand. I just can’t authorize whatever he thinks I need to authorize,” the mayor said.

Echanove added Farr had told him over the phone he would have him removed from office.

Echanove works for the WSU Information Technology department. Last fall, Farr and McGehee discovered, through turning in public records requests to the city of Palouse, that Echanove had used time at his public WSU position to work on city business.

Bailey said Farr, in their Aug. 16 conversation, told him if Echanove didn’t meet his demands, he would tell the world about Echanove’s use of WSU resources, consequentially having him “thrown out of office.”

“He (Farr) implied that Echanove’s use of WSU resources would be exposed if his issues with the city were not resolved,” Bailey said in an interview with the Gazette Jan. 15.

When Echanove did not give in to Farr’s demands, Bailey reasoned in his letter to Tracy, McGehee complained to the WSU auditor’s office that Echanove was using his time on the clock to work on Palouse city business.

“I asked Mr. Bailey to provide more information so I can make an initial determination into whether or not an investigation is warranted,” Tracy said.

Tracy said the intent of most Washington laws on intimidation of a public official is to prevent people from “bringing undue pressure on public servants and bringing undue influence on public servants.”

Farr told the Gazette during the Jan. 15 interview he has been working for two years to have Echanove removed from office.

His dislike for the mayor began two years ago when Echanove visited his home, he said.

“I decided to get him (Echanove) out of office two years ago. A year and half ago I had him up here and we drank a couple bottles of wine trying to work out our problems,” Farr said. “It became real clear he was a politician trying to get a vote and he didn’t care about my problems.”

Farr has been in an ongoing dispute with the city for the past year over how to install service lines for a proposed development in the Breeding’s Addition neighborhood.

Farr said he got into it with Echanove over the service lines last year.

“He called me up from his job at WSU and he started to give me his water speech. I just lost it. I told him I was going to remove him from office,” Farr said.

Farr would not detail how he has been trying to have Echanove removed from office.

“I’m doing this for pure pleasure right now,” said Farr. “I’m doing this because I’m going to do this. They (Echanove and city staff) really are bad apples. It’s happening right in front of you. “

When asked if the complaint to the WSU auditor’s office was part of his quest to remove the mayor, he said, “Everything is linked. It is all connected.”

“We’re running an investigation here. It’s way up at the state level right now. There’s a lot of people watching this,” Farr said.

Farr in early January lodged a formal complaint with the city of Palouse against Echanove and Bailey, claiming Bailey had used “prohibited votes” on the Breedings Addition project.

He also said he suspected the two of using “the planning commission to fraudulently obtain state funds and that the fraud continues today through various commission activities.”