Flathead County not pushing Evergreen proposal

A trial balloon on whether Evergreen should create a land-use advisory committee has the support of Flathead County government only in that the idea can be pitched to the public -not in the sense that the county should back such a venture.

That distinction was voiced Thursday during a joint meeting of the county commissioners and Planning Board.

Commissioners Joe Brenneman and Dale Lauman said that a few weeks ago they told Alan Gilbertson, president of the Evergreen Business and Property Owners Association, that he should seek public feedback on this idea - while the commissioners voiced neither support nor opposition to the project.

Jeff Harris, county planning director, said much the same.

His office told Gilbertson the legal procedures for forming a land-use committee. The planning office has taken no action on the Evergreen proposal, he said.

A week ago, Gilbertson said he is ambivalent about whether a land-use advisory committee is a good idea, but wanted to get public comments on it.

To do that, he scheduled a public meeting today at noon at Evergreen Junior High School.

Several letters to the editor and an American Dream Montana mailing have blasted the proposal. They contended that Gilbertson does not speak for Evergreen and that the county government and Brenneman in particular have an agenda to control Evergreen.

American Dream Montana is a property rights organization that is highly critical of Brenneman and Harris.

"This agenda is so hidden that I don't know about it," Brenneman said at Thursday's meeting.

Planning Board member and Evergreen resident George Culpepper Jr. said Gilbertson's proposal "has sparked a huge fire in Evergreen itself."

Commissioners and board members discussed how an unincorporated area should tackle the first stages of proposing a land-use advisory committee.

"There's no way to start the process without controversy," board member Mike Mower said.

Such a committee would put together a land-use plan - which would consist of suggested guidelines to give the Planning Board an idea of what an unincorporated community wants to see in development in its area.

Neighborhoods plans to not have the force of law or regulations.

However, there is debate about how closely the Planning Board and the commissioners should follow those guidelines.

Flathead County has 18 such committees and land-use plans.

The commissioners and Planning Board agreed that land-use committee organizers should first survey the people in the area to ensure the majority - or at least the majority of those responding -'support the concept. After that, organizers should then approach the county government for help, commissioners and board members said.

Also on Thursday, board members and commissioners discussed five instances in 2008 when the commissioners overruled board recommendations. That included all four times that the board recommended denying preliminary plats.

Board members expressed frustration about feeling superfluous in that every denial recommendation was overruled.

The two bodies agreed that in the future, the commissioners should provide reasons for overruling the board.

The board also routinely makes recommendations contingent that certain conditions are met. Sometimes, the commissioners remove those conditions after a developer's request without knowing why the board originally set those requirements.

The board agreed to highlight its most-desired conditions in future recommendations to the commissioners.