Group alleges planning missteps

Alleged wrongdoing by the Flathead County Planning Office is the focus of a public forum on Monday hosted by American Dream Montana.

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Red Lion Hotel Kalispell. Clarence Taber will make introductions and lead the discussion.

The vocal property-rights group is well-known in the Flathead Valley for challenging government officials and policies related to local land use and fairness of the planning process.

This time around, American Dream has been publishing full-page advertisements in the Daily Inter Lake alleging a long list of grievances, from misappropriation of public money to illegal and secret land-use meetings.

"This is to inform the public about how the processes have been handled and whether they feel their rights have been violated," American Dream member Donna Thornton said. "It's to let people see what's been going on."

Taber said he hopes meetings like this one will be a catalyst for involving people in the planning process.

"If you do things secretly and privately, you're leaving people out," Taber said.

Thornton has compiled reams of documentation - e-mails, memorandums and other documents largely from the planning office - that American Dream maintains is evidence of the wrongdoing.

Members of American Dream are among the 24 Lakeside and Somers property owners who filed a lawsuit last week against the Lakeside Neighborhood Planning Committee, County Planning Director Jeff Harris and Flathead County, challenging the neighborhood planning process and alleging violations of open meeting laws.

The group has asked for a court injunction stopping the Somers plan and any future neighborhood plans, and wants the Lakeside plan declared unconstitutional.

Thornton and her husband, Dennis, took some of their concerns to the county commissioners in early April, asking that the commissioners draft a resolution stating the county's policy regarding access to public records by the public.

They used their attempt to get a copy of the Lakeside Neighborhood Plan update as an example of the access problem.

The Thorntons, who own acreage in the Lakeside area, asked for a copy of the updated plan in January, but say they got the run-around from planning officials who claimed they didn't have the Lakeside file.

"We knew they had the Lakeside file and we pursued it quite frankly like pit bulls," Donna Thornton said, adding that it took three months to get the requested documents.

Planner Andrew Hagemeier said that at the time of the Thorntons' request the office had not been maintaining a "file."

"Official files containing hard copies are generally not created until an application is submitted for consideration by the Planning Board and/or county commission," Hagemeier explained, adding "that's not saying we didn't have any information. I was and have been providing technical assistance to the plan committee off and on for some time now."

Most of the plan information was stored electronically, though, Hagemeier said, noting that occasionally items were printed off into hard copy, usually in preparation for meetings and distribution to committee members.

In response to the Thorntons' request, and at the direction of his superiors, Hagemeier made a CD of all Lakeside plan documents and delivered it to the county attorney.

"The [Lakeside] Plan Committee is intending that once the plan is approved by the Community Council and an application submitted to our office, to submit all documents that pertain to the creation of the plan in their possession to be included as part of their application," Hagemeier said. "All of these documents will be put into hard copy and stored as part of a file in our office."

American Dream members also maintain the planning office hasn't been forthcoming about the Somers neighborhood plan. Thornton points to the June 10 Planning Board meeting during which board member George Culpepper Jr. asked Planning Director Jeff Harris whether the Somers plan was already written.

Harris told the board "no." But when Culpepper referred to an existing Somers draft plan, Harris said the Somers community had hired consultant Lisa Horowitz to start on a neighborhood plan draft. Horowitz then moved out of state, leaving what Harris described as an unfinished rough draft in November 2007 that doesn't comply with the county growth policy.

Hagemeier said the planning office didn't get an electronic copy of the Somers draft until May 2008.

Some elements of that plan still may be usable, but Harris said the Somers community "is starting fresh," even though planners and Somers plan supporters will take a look at the old draft.

The Thorntons also question how mailings are handled to notify property owners. They said they didn't get notification of the Lakeside plan update and wonder how many other property owners weren't contacted.

Hagemeier said the planning office uses the most current tax-roll mailing list to notify property owners of a proposed neighborhood planning effort. He said a copy of the notice went to the Thorntons post-office box.

Assistant Planning Director BJ Grieve, responding to American Dream's criticism that taxpayer money is wrongly used to mail notices to affected property owners, said "we've learned that engaging the public" is the best way to get community involvement.

"A passive approach would be slapping it [notification] up on a Web site," Grieve said.

The Thorntons further allege that proper public notice has not been given for neighborhood plan committee meetings.

Deputy County Attorney Jonathan Smith agreed that neighborhood plan meetings should have public notice because they're subject to open-meeting laws, but that doesn't necessarily mean publishing the information in the newspaper.

"The law doesn't specify the type of notice," Smith said.

The Lakeside plan committee posted some meeting notices at the Lakeside library and post office.

AMONG the other allegations on the agenda for Monday's meeting are inappropriate material in the form of personal e-mails circulated on county planning office computers, a members-only Web site used by the Lakeside neighborhood plan committee that was shut down last week, and alleged collusion between the county attorney's office and the planning office "to deny property owners the protection of the rule of law."

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com