Eric Bush

A lawsuit filed by former Prineville Police Chief Eric Bush sheds some light on the substance of the 10-month investigation that culminated in his termination on Tuesday, while arguing he lost his job due to his involvement with the Oregon Army National Guard.

Hours after the city announced Bush had been fired, Bush filed his $2.5 million suit against the city, interim chief Captain Michael Boyd and the Local Government Personnel Institute, an organization created by the League of Oregon Cities and the Association of Oregon Counties that the city hired to conduct the investigation.

State law largely protects the right of military personnel to return to their jobs after an absence for military-related activity.

Although the city has declined to make the institute’s report public, Bush’s 140-page complaint suggests the investigation centered on his alleged abuse of the city’s flex-time policy and the falsification of hours worked, with some exploration of his possible misuse of office computers for personal and National Guard-related matters.

The complaint asserts Bush was placed on paid leave Sept. 3 of last year, the first day he returned to work after a nearly monthlong National Guard assignment in South Korea, and more than three weeks before Prineville officials announced it publicly.

According to the complaint, shortly after Bush was promoted to brigadier general in September 2011, some city employees began expressing concerns that his commitments to the National Guard were taking him away from the police department too often.

In July 2013, Bush emailed city department heads advising them of a new National Guard assignment that would send him to South Korea. The next day — unbeknownst to Bush, the suit claims — City Manager Steve Forrester wrote a memo expressing concern that it would be difficult for Bush to effectively run the department while out of the country for two or more months a year.

Bush was in South Korea with the National Guard from Aug. 4 though Aug. 31. On Aug. 28, the city retained the Local Government Personnel Institute to begin investigating Bush.

The suit claims that Prineville’s employee policies do not require salaried employees such as Bush to track their flex time. Roxanne Farra, Bush’s attorney, said employees who work excess hours in a given day or week are allowed to take time off in the future.

Bush had been on leave for three months by the time he was called in to be interviewed by Local Government Personnel Institute investigators. Despite reviewing four years of Bush’s calendars, investigators found no evidence of flex time-related wrongdoing by Bush, according to the complaint.

In April, City Attorney Carl Dutli reportedly sent Bush a preliminary draft of the institute’s report. Dutli’s cover letter “threatened Bush with public humiliation,” the suit claims, by writing that the city intended to make the completed report public if requested, while suggesting disclosure of the report could be avoided if Bush resolved the matter before the final report was completed.

Capt. Boyd was positioning himself to be Prineville’s next chief, the suit claims, and described Bush as “corrupt,” an “embezzler” and a “liar” to others in the department. Shortly after Bush had been placed on leave, Boyd reportedly told department employees, “Chief Bush might just kill himself and that would be the easiest outcome.”

City Manager Forrester did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.

Mayor Betty Roppe said Thursday that, although she was unable to comment on Bush’s suit, she has confidence in Forrester’s ability to make day-to-day personnel decisions and supports his dismissal of Bush. She said council members received regular updates on the investigation over the past 10 months and conceded the process dragged on longer than she would have preferred.

“The city had to be really cautious and make sure our investigation was thorough,” she said. “Public employees have a lot of rights, and we had to make sure our I’s were dotted and our T’s were crossed.”

Bush’s suit seeks more than $2.5 million from the city to compensate for the loss of future wages and benefits along with additional noneconomic damages for defamation and the deliberate infliction of emotional distress.

— Reporter: 541-383-0387, shammers@bendbulletin.com