Whitefish votes to sue county over 'doughnut'

The Daily Inter Lake

The legal fight over Whitefish's two-mile planning "doughnut" has been joined.

The Whitefish City Council on Monday voted 5-1 to authorize Whitefish City Attorney John Phelps to sue Flathead County over the commissioners' decision last week to rescind the interlocal agreement that created the doughnut three years ago.

Ryan Friel was the lone council member opposing the lawsuit.

Commissioners Gary Hall and Dale Lauman voted to pull out of the interlocal agreement, maintaining the city of Whitefish is exerting too much control over the two-mile area where residents cannot vote or be elected to the council. Commissioner Dale Brenneman was adamantly opposed.

Phelps said he plans to file a request for a preliminary injunction in Flathead District Court today.

He will ask the court to issue a temporary restraining order against the county so the city can continue to conduct business in the doughnut on a status-quo basis.

Some of the legwork needed to draft the lawsuit already had been done. Six years ago, when then-Commissioner Dale Williams threatened to have the county unilaterally dissolve the city's planning jurisdiction, Phelps drafted a lawsuit just in case Williams followed through.

"I got it out, dusted it off, a lot of the work was already done," Phelps said.

He hopes the court will schedule a hearing within a month.

Meanwhile, the city is conducting "business as usual," Phelps said. "We're taking the position the county couldn't back out" of the interlocal agreement.

To that end, the Whitefish City-County Planning Board on Thursday will vote on development proposals in the doughnut, including Lookout Ridge on Big Mountain.

Whitefish has sued the county only once before, to retrieve the city's portion of money that remained when the Flathead Regional Development Office split apart. In that case, District Judges Ted Lympus and Kitty Curtis both removed themselves from the case.