In local elections, there are few races more important than county attorney. It’s a position that handles the prosecution of criminal offenses and advises officials on other legal matters.

And in Butte, the candidates themselves are under the legal spotlight.

“We’ve had a lot of signs disappearing this year. Everybody calls it the sign wars,” said Matt Enrooth, candidate for Butte-Silver Bow County Attorney.

It all came to the forefront on Oct. 24, when Matt Enrooth, the acting Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Attorney, put a message on his campaign page stating some signs were placed without permission and a business owner asked for unauthorized signs to be removed.

“It’s a county ordinance that requires us to ask the owner or the occupier of the property to get permission to put a sign up. So, we did a generic post kind of reminding all candidates,” said Enrooth.

The same day, Enrooth’s opponent, interim Butte-Silver Bow County Attorney Kelli Fivey, also posted to Facebook, sharing images showing Enrooth removing her sign from the front of the Freeway Tavern, with additional images showing it in a dumpster.

Fivey writes that it is considered theft, calling it “disheartening and absolutely unbelievable.”

Enrooth tells NBC Montana he did remove the sign, but insists he received permission from bar owner Kathy Faroni to remove it at the time and if it’s ever put back up.

“So, Kathy asked me to take the sign down. We took it down, no big deal, put it in the back, life went on,” said Enrooth.

I reached out to Fivey for an interview, and she declined, saying it was turned over to law enforcement and that she’d focused on finishing out the campaign on a positive note.

In a Facebook post on Oct. 25, Fivey stated she did have permission to place the sign, that she apologizes for the needless attention this is bringing to the Freeway Tavern, and that she did not intend to start a Facebook war.

Enrooth has questions about how and where the camera was placed, and whether it could have violated any privacy rights in the Montana Constitution.

“As the acting county attorney you put a game camera up on what looks like on a public light post, I think, and point it at a bar?” said Enrooth.

I emailed Fivey a list of questions including where the camera was placed, whether she had legal permission to set it up, and whether used the resources of her office as part of this investigation. I did not receive a response.

I also reached out to Butte-Silver Bow Ed Lester to confirm if there is an active investigation and he declined to comment.

I also left multiple messages with Freeway Tavern owner Kathi Faroni, but she did not respond. And without her perspective questions about who is telling the truth remain unanswered.

Enrooth says he has not been contacted by law enforcement, and says if he could do it all over, he would’ve handled things differently.

“After seeing the devastation that something that simple caused. (I would have said) Kathy, take it down, if there’s an issue, Kathy, go make a complaint,” said Enrooth.

Enrooth and Fivey were separated by just 18 votes out of over 10,000 cast in the primary, so this race has the potential to be a nail-biter, and we’ll make sure to keep you updated.