Once a watchdog, always a watchdog

COEUR d'ALENE - Matt Roetter is more than just a local watchdog.

The private researcher keeps his eye focused on what's going on everywhere, not just what's around.

"That's my passion in my life," said Roetter, who researched documents for three class action lawsuits currently in litigation in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and California. "I have compassion

for the consumer, the little guy, that's where my heart is."

It wasn't always Roetter's profession, but one that got a jump start after the former window distributing businessman suspected a company he had been dealing with wasn't quite true to its advertising word.

That was back in the 1990s, when Roetter was distributing high energy windows in Idaho and eastern Washington for then product producing and Wisconsin-based HURD Millwork Co.

HURD Millwork made high-tech windows which used a gas between plates to improve thermal performance. To spare the windows from atmospheric distortion when shipping them across the Continental Divide, HURD Millwork installed special rods to help them keep their shape.

All Roetter wondered was how they installed special equipment without releasing the gas?

"They said, 'don't worry about it,'" Roetter remembered. "After that, I kind of became demanding. I wanted to know."

In the end, Roetter had the delivered windows tested himself. When he found out the gas wasn't there, "the legal action started," Roetter said.

It took years of legal back and forth - "a low point in my life," as Roetter put it - but in the end HURD filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008.

Well before that, Roetter was praised by the Idaho Attorney General's Office.

"Thank you," Deputy Attorney Brett DeLange wrote Roetter in a July 29, 1998 letter. "The information you provided was essential to the investigation and, ultimately, to resolving this case satisfactorily."

After that, a new career was born.

And Roetter is still at it, as a document researcher for pending and possible cases. He describes it as paralegal work, and a job he loves.

"I love the investigative side," he said. "I love to find the needle in the hay stack."

Roetter, 55, stays busy close to home, too.

For his work here, he's been nominated by Gary Ingram for the 2011 Max Dalton Open Government Award, sponsored by the Idaho Newspaper Foundation.

Roetter used Idaho's Public Records Act to "correct several wrongs," Ingram, a former Idaho legislator and 2009 winner of the award, cited in a press release.

Roetter discovered that a City of Coeur d'Alene's ordinance was unconstitutional after a man was arrested counter protesting an Aryan Nations parade nearly a decade ago.

At the time, Gary Edwards was arrested for using a wooden tomato stake to display his sign since the stake could be viewed as a weapon. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2001 the city's ordinance was unconstitutional as a restriction on speech, according to court documents.

Since then, Roetter also discovered that the urban renewal agency Lake City Development Corp. (LCDC) had not been filing, as required, conflict of interest disclosures with the state for more than 12 years, which it now does.

Using his own funds Roetter also paid fees to LCDC for public records over a two-year period, concluding that urban renewal districts were receiving additional taxes from levy elections of other taxing districts. Roetter presented his findings two years ago to the legislature and the practice was outlawed, Ingram cited in his nomination.

"I don't do it for accolades," Roetter said. "I feel honored enough that Gary would nominate me. He was quite a legislator."

The award will be presented May 7 in Boise at the annual awards banquet.

The winner will receive a $1,000 cash award, a commemorative handcrafted Raku Art piece by noted artisan Alan Giltzow of Donnelly and a Max Dalton Award plaque.