Couple questions openness of planning process

A couple recently questioned the openness of a committee putting together a first draft of a revised Lakeside neighborhood plan.

On April 7, Donna and Dennis Thornton complained to the Flathead County commissioners that the drafting process has been conducted partly behind closed doors.

County officials and the planning chairwoman don't agree with that charge.

The Thorntons, who live in Evergreen, own land in Lakeside and have been trying to develop a condominium project in that area.

They told the commissioners that:

n Twenty-three of roughly 50 draft committee meetings were not advertised in accordance with state open meetings laws.

n The county planning office did not have copies of draft documents available when they requested a look at them.

n County Planner Andrew Hagemaier helped with the drafting, which the Thorntons contended should make the preliminary paperwork public. The committee members did the actual writing, while Hagemaier provided technical advice.

n A couple of internal committee e-mails in January discussed not publicly sharing parts of some parts of the plan still being written.

"We weren't there to get the plan thrown out, but to get more documentation," Donna Thornton said a few days later.

County Planning Director Jeff Harris, Hagemaier and draft committee chairwoman Debbie Spaulding agreed that all the documents should be available to the public.

That's because the draft committee is part of the Lakeside Community Council, which itself is a committee for the county commissioners - making every entity in that chain subject to Montana's open meetings laws.

However, Harris and Hagemaier distinguished between completed draft documents and partly written preliminary drafts that still need homework to ensure they are correct. They maintain the latter are not public documents.

Harris, Hagemaier and Spaulding said all of the committee meetings have been advertised in the West Shore News, the Daily Inter Lake, the committee's Web site at http://lakesideplan2008.com and at the Lakeside library.

Some of the earliest meetings were held in homes, which Harris thought could be criticized. Now the draft committee holds a weekly 6:30 p.m. Monday meeting at the library.

Hagemaier and Harris said a volunteer committee could be unfamiliar with public records laws, which could have led to the e-mailed remarks about not wanting to publicly discuss some preliminary drafts.

The draft neighborhood plan will be presented to the Lakeside Community Council at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the sewer district's office.

Harris said the county planning department won't have any documentation on this draft until the Lakeside Community Council says it is ready for public dissemination, debate and feedback. At that point, the proposal will become a county document, Harris said.

Spaulding, Harris and Hagemaier expect the draft to go through several weeks of review, debate and modifications before it goes to the Flathead County Planning Board for more of the same. If and when the Planning Board is happy with the draft, it will then go to the county commissioners for more discussion and possibly a vote.

The entire process will be public, along with all the documents, they said.

While the original 1995 Lakeside neighborhood plan is public, the county government's copy is buried in an archive building. The 1995 plan is thin with no goals or details, according to a copy held by Spaulding.

There has been no intention to keep any part of the draft plan a secret, Harris, Hagemaier and Spaulding said.

However, they said they wanted a draft's details ironed out enough so the public has something solid enough to study.