Toilet dispute lands GOP candidate and business owner in hot water

IDAHO FALLS — A dispute over running water has spilled into a contentious lawsuit between Bonneville County Commission candidate Doyle Beck and Teton Business Park owner Don Sorrells.

“He’s had my water (and sewer) shut off now since April (2023),” Sorrells says of Beck. “The court has issued two preliminary injunctions. Judge (Michael) Whyte has ordered him to turn the water back on two different occasions, and he’s refused to honor the court order.”

Beck disputes that description of events, saying Sorrells’ property has strained the water and sewer services of his nonprofit Sunnyside Park Utilities with overuse, forcing Beck to overhaul his previous sewer system last summer.

“This is simply about his inability to manage his toilets and not accept any accountability for it,” Beck tells EastIdahoNews.com.

Beck filed to run for Bonneville County commissioner on March 15.

Steven Frankenberry, who owns Elevated Deck and Fence in the business park, just smiles at the situation.

“We don’t have water,” he says. “Porta potties are nice and cold in the winter. It’s cold seats in the winter, so it’s a good time.”

But it isn’t always a laughing matter to those caught in the crossfire of the dispute.

Sorrells has lost two tenants and had six or seven potential clients decide not to lease because of the current conditions with no running water.

Meanwhile, Beck and Sunnyside Park Utilities were forced to install a new $160,821 septic system in 2023 because of flooding caused by the situation.

The sides claim legal fees in excess of $170,000 and $150,000 apiece.

Taking the lid off the case

Sorrells, 81, developed the property, which he bought in 2019. Teton Business Park, also known as Sunnyside Industrial and Professional Park, is at 3887 American Way in Idaho Falls and is an industrial office complex with 18 suites. At the heart of the dispute is a standalone office with conference rooms and restroom facilities.

Beck, 71, says Sorrells originally requested service for two restrooms to serve his tenants, but that when he constructed the facility, Sorrells also included a trailer dump station, 10 hose bibbs and a washer and dryer unit.

The development’s sewer system was originally designed to handle a maximum of 2,000 gallons per day, Beck says, with each user allocated up to 12,000 gallons of water per month before they incurred additional charges.

Steve Taggart, an attorney who has represented Sorrells, says the conflict between his client and Beck began with a leaky toilet in 2019 that ran for a day before being fixed.

Sorrells claims the incident occurred twice and was quickly resolved. The issue occurred again in 2021, and the toilet was repaired with no violation since, Taggart says.

But Beck says he submitted to the court a list of 13 times when Sorrells has flooded his sewer system with a running toilet, releasing more water than Sunnyside Utility Park’s system is designed to handle.

“He destroys my drain field constantly because when you take a toilet, it flushes 1.3 gallons per flush,” Beck said. “It fills back up in like 35 to 40 seconds, and that equates out to be … if you just let it run, say it sticks … that’s over 3,000 gallons a day, plus my other customers.”

“The excessive flows to the system have caused the drain field to fail, and the system owner has installed a new drain field to rectify the failure,” according to Daniel Sharp, an engineer with Noesis Engineering Services, describing the utility’s response to overuse attributed to Sorrells’ business park.

However, Taggart responds that Sorrells only exceeded his annual 12,000-gallon water allotment by 30.83 gallons from September 2021 to April 2023 — far less than the five other metered properties in the development — saying Sorrells resolved the previous issues and is not a persistent violator.

Beck responds that these other properties use water primarily for landscaping, which does not impact his sewer system.

According to Sorrells, less than 0.5% of all the water put into the septic system came from his property, and he has had no water issues for the past two years.

As a developer, he has bought and sold more than 100 properties during his career.

“I’ve never been involved in a lawsuit on any property that I ever developed or built, or bought and sold in my life,” he said.

Things come to a head

Originally, Sunnyside Park Utilities sued Sorrells for being a “persistent violator” and asked to be able to terminate his water and sewer access.

On March 23, 2023, Judge Bruce Pickett ruled that Sorrells was a persistent violator and authorized Sunnyside Park Utilities to “refuse to provide sewer services for Mr. Sorrells’ property.” However, he did not award Sunnyside Park Utilities any attorney fees. Both the defendant and the plaintiff appealed the ruling to the Idaho Supreme Court, Taggart wrote.

In April 2023, water and sewer were cut off to the property, forcing Sorrells to service his properties with portable toilets and have water transported to the location.

“I’ve been losing tenants because of this water issue,” Sorrells said. “The women and the men have to come out here and use porta potties in subzero weather, which is totally absurd.”

Dominic Ruiz has worked at Teton Business Park for the past two years.

“It’s been very chaotic for us, you know, we would like at least to have that water because unfortunately, these (temporary units) are the only restrooms we have available to the whole facility,” Ruiz says.

In response, Sorrells filed a lawsuit to restore water service, which came before Judge Whyte.

On Sept. 9, Whyte issued an order for the utility company to restore water and sewer service once Sorrells paid a $20,000 bond.

In return, Beck’s utility filed for bankruptcy — which would block all court actions, including the injunction to turn on the water and sewer service.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ve got $100,000 in attorney fees now. We have revenue of $1,600 a month. We went and filed a bankruptcy,’” Beck says.

“Sorrells asked Judge Whyte … to enforce his order requiring restoration of service and dismiss the bankruptcy filing as a bad faith,” Taggart writes. Ultimately, “both motions were granted by the bankruptcy court.”

Sorrells posted the bond on Jan 31.

Beck said his attorney Mark Fuller filed a motion with the Idaho Supreme Court that “this district judge is overruling the other district judge,” but the Supreme Court didn’t take the case, so Fuller filed a motion to reconsider with Whyte.

In a Feb. 28 ruling, Whyte said, “Sunnyside Park Utilities argues that … there is no corrective action that Sorrells could take to change his persistent violator status. Following that logic, Sunnyside Park Utilities would never have to allow Sorrells an opportunity to have sewer services reinstated.”

“This court disagrees and is upholding the preliminary injunction to restore water service to Sorrells,” Whyte said in his decision.

Whyte also emphasized that Sunnyside Park Utilities “still has the sewer rules in place, and if there are further violations by Sorrells, (it) can again take corrective action against Sorrells, or any other landowner, until those corrective actions are cured.”

Flush on, flush off

Following the court’s Feb. 28 injunction to restore water, Beck says Sorrells gave him one hour notice at 11 a.m. to restore water services.

In a declaration to the court on March 7, tenant Frankenberry testified, “Mr. Sorrells informed Sunnyside Utilities that he would wait an hour for them to remove their lock on his meter.”

Sorrells and Frankenberry removed Beck’s lock, installed another and turned on the water — all in the presence of a Bonneville County Sheriff’s deputy.

“He (Beck) refuses to honor the court’s order. He thinks he’s above the law,“ Sorrells says.

Beck contends that removing the original lock was a violation of private property and that only the utility has the authority to turn on the water in compliance with the judge’s order.

“He’s breaking every rule in the book by turning the water on and off himself and by flooding us,” Beck says.

Beck says that night, Sorrells’ property used 1,800 gallons of water, so he promptly went and shut off the water again, also accompanied by a Bonneville County Sheriff’s deputy.

The two have battled back and forth turning the water on and off.

“The preliminary thing that the judge ordered was for him to turn the water back on — not for him to turn it on, then see how much water was used, and then turn it off again,” Sorrells says.

Beck said that when he went to shut off the water, he found large metal ball bearings and eventually pennies dumped down the pipe to try to prevent him from turning off the water.

Sorrells denies having anything to do with that.

Beck has placed a 1,000-pound concrete pillar over the water valve, preventing Sorrells from accessing the valve to restore his water service.

In a declaration to the court, Sorrells says he considers the slab to be a trespass on his property.

The next hearing in the conflict will be held before Whyte at 9 a.m. April 2 at the Bonneville County Courthouse.

As he runs for election, Beck says the case exemplifies how he would resolve potential disputes in the future.

“If I’m a county commissioner, I will respond exactly how I have responded there,” Beck said. “I will not let someone violate rules and not be responsible for them.”

Taggart says it’s one of the oddest cases he’s seen in his career.

“It’s the great toilet saga,” Taggart says. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve laughed over this.”