Newspaper publisher challenges Roosevelt County Attorney’s qualifications for office

A newspaper publisher in Wolf Point has challenged the election of the Roosevelt County attorney, saying that living out of the county should disqualify him from the position, and claiming that he’s intentionally obscured his residency to avoid scrutiny.

Northern Plains Independent Publisher Darla Downs has filed a complaint with the Roosevelt County Election Administrator against Frank A. Piocos, the Roosevelt County attorney. Piocos won election as the county attorney after being appointed to the position by the county commissioners after former County Attorney Austin Knudsen became the attorney general of Montana in 2021.

Downs maintains that Piocos’ election violates state law because his voter registration is based on a property he leases commercially, not where he lives. Furthermore, she claims the paperwork shows that Piocos has intentionally tried hide the issue of his residency.

However, Piocos presented written responses that said he meets the Montana legal definition for holding the office, and that his residency is a moot point so long as he has lived within the state. He claims that Downs’ vendetta stems from him prosecuting her daughter for a drug offense.

Downs said that she bears no animosity for her daughter’s troubles with the law, which resulted in a deferred sentence. Instead, she’s doing her job challenging public officials from her position as a journalist. Downs has previously won a legal victory to keep publishing a newspaper that spans generations in her family, and is a former president of the Montana Newspaper Association.

“Numerous people have asked: How can we have a county attorney that doesn’t live in the county?” Downs said.

She said she knows that Piocos’ address in Culbertson is not where he lives. She said he lives in St. Marie, a community in Valley County.  She said she knows his address in Culbertson is not a residential address because the editor of Northern Plains Independent, James Walling, owns the building where Piocos rents.

“I looked at how we could challenge this, and I would have to do it as a private citizen, as an elector,” she said.

So Downs found that Piocos was registered to vote in Roosevelt County, based on the Culbertson address. She’s challenging Piocos’ election because he’s not a true resident of the county.

A check of voting records, though, shows that Piocos did not vote in the 2022 midterm elections, a fact which he also admits, even though his voter registration card lists the Culbertson address.

The issue is even more complicated because while Montana case law defines residency as “intent coupled with action,” the statutes regarding the legal qualifications for county attorney are different.

Montana Code – section 7-4-2701 – says that a county attorney must be a citizen of the United States and reside in the state for two years and have been admitted to the practice of law three years before the election date.

Piocos graduated from high school in Great Falls and according to the Montana Bar Association has been a member since 2000.

Piocos also presented the elections office with paperwork indicating that he is in the process of selling a house in Valley County and looking for one in Roosevelt County.

Piocos said in a written response to Downs’ complaint that her allegations about where he is registered to vote is immaterial because he didn’t vote in the 2022 election or even request a ballot. Furthermore, he said that Downs didn’t file her complaint until Nov. 15, a week after the election.

“By waiting until after the election, Downs deprived me, the district court and the election administrator opportunity to address the issue prior to the election,” Piocos wrote. “This violates my constitutional due process rights under the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. and Montana Constitution.”

Piocos pointed that the challenge to an elector has to happen within five days of the election.

Piocos also contends that challenging an elector doesn’t mean that he could be removed from office. Instead, he said that removing a county attorney must be done under the Montana Recall Act. That act provides that 15% of the registered electors in the county would have to sign a petition to enact a recall vote.

In his written response, Piocos said that a state district court could investigate whether his elector status constituted a violation. In many cases, the court could find in favor of the person running against Piocos. However, because he ran unopposed, he said there was no harm to another candidate. And even if the court invalidated his election based on residency, the remedy would trigger a special election.

“Under this scenario, I would run again for Roosevelt County Attorney and anticipate no challenger,” he said. “If a challenger did run and win, I would go on a long vacation, preferably somewhere warm.”

Piocos’ run for county attorney is not the only challenge to one of Montana’s 56 county attorney slots. Earlier in the 2022 Election cycle, Ravalli County Attorney Bill Fulbright’s campaign challenged the candidacy of his opponent, Joan Mell, claiming that she had not lived in Montana long enough to meet the residency requirements, according to the Bitteroot Star.

Downs said that her concerns go beyond where Piocos lives.

“He’s a terrible county attorney and I think the commissioners have regretted it,” she said.

She points to what she said is a dereliction of duty by Piocos not prosecuting a case where a county commissioner sold gravel without a bidding process without notifying two other commissioners.

The Roosevelt County Attorney salary is $115,300.88.

“There are good reasons why the State of Montana requires a county official to be a county elector or resident. You should live in the district or the county that you represent,” Downs said to the Northern Plains Independent. “That not an extreme requirement. We have waited and waited for Mr. Piocos to make the simple move to Roosevelt County prior to the election, and he simply has refused to comply with Montana statute. When he still hadn’t moved to our county on Election Day, it was important to bring this to light. I feel his actions were misleading to the voters of Roosevelt County.”