Former City of Nampa’s Deputy Public Works Director Michael Mieyr filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against his employer after dismissal following less than one year on the job.  Mieyr claims his dismissal was in retaliation for calling attention to billing problems and the harassment of city job applicants during his tenure.

Mieyr’s lawsuit was filed in 2015 in federal court, and it recently began the move toward mediation.  According to his attorney, William Thomas, it is still too early to make a comment on the status of the mediation process and talks are ongoing.

According to Mieyr, he discovered both over and under billing issues of city water bills after he was hired.  According to his lawsuit, his administration determined approximately 1300 accounts were affected and that many area businesses were billed at higher-than-appropriate sewer rates.  According to Mieyr, city officials did nothing to correct the problem after he drew their attention to it.  However, records show that approximately 50 commercial accounts that had been under-billed were forgiven after the incident.   Mieyr stated in a separate lawsuit that the city was shorted more than $375,000 over the course of a decade from commercial accounts that were billed $350 instead of $3500 per month.

The city claims Mieyr was not responsible for having identified the problems and that they had been noted before he began work.

Mieyr has also stated that city meter readers were not given proper training, and in his role, implemented necessary training and testing. 

City officials continue to claim they did not break any laws and allege that Mieyr has made false claims.