Take bridge down, district judge rules

A district judge has voided Flathead County’s permit for a 540-foot-long bridge connecting Flathead Lake’s North Shore to Dockstader Island and ordered that the bridge be removed.

Ruling on a lawsuit filed in February 2015 by the Community Association for North Shore Conservation, Judge Robert B. Allison determined that the county had violated the Lakeshore Protection Act.

The decision is likely to be appealed.

In his decision, Allison wrote that actions by the county also precluded him from allowing the commissioners to make changes to the permit to bring it into compliance with the lakeshore regulations.

“The commissioners have shown the court their hand, and any remand would be meaningless,” Allison concluded in his ruling. “Thus, the court has no option but to declare the permit invalid and void [from the outset] and because the bridge was built without a permit, the remaining remedy is removal of the bridge and restoration of the lakeshore to its natural state.”

Since it was first proposed by Roger Sortino and Jolene Dugan in 2011, the bridge has elicited controversy in the North Shore area and prompted the creation of the environmental group opposing it. Dugan, who owns Dockstader Island and the adjacent shoreline property, had joined the county as an intervenor in the lawsuit.

Bridge opponents have argued that it would cause environmental damage to the lakeshore and nearby wetlands, detract from the scenic quality of the area and create a hazard for boat traffic.

In his decision, Allison sided with some of those arguments, noting that the county failed to consider visual impacts when it initially approved the permit and appeared to reverse course earlier this year, when commissioners denied a permit amendment that would have added minor decorative and structural changes to the bridge.

“The court is at a loss [as to] how basically cosmetic additions to a 481-foot bridge can cause these impacts, but the bridge itself does not,” he wrote.

Flathead County failed to properly apply criteria set forth by the lakeshore regulations, he added, and wrote that in its defense of the lawsuit, the county offered up “a standard of review that is not a standard of review and would essentially give the county carte blanche if a law grants them authority to make a decision.”

He further contended that because Dugan’s permit application did not specify a use for the bridge or refer to additional work that would be needed for a vehicular bridge, such as connecting roads, the county had accepted an incomplete permit and failed to consider the full impact of the project.

Community Association for North Shore Conservation Chairman Dave Hadden hailed the decision as a victory for the state law regulating development on lakeside property.

“It’s a decision that really protects all of Montana and all of Montanans’ rights,” Hadden said Thursday. “And without these decisions, we would have no Montana Lakeshore Protection Act and it would be a free-for-all on development around all of our beautiful lake.”

Dugan’s attorney, Rich DeJana, said Thursday he expects Allison’s decision will be appealed to the Montana Supreme Court. If so, it would be first time the high court has considered a case based on the state’s Lakeshore Protection Act.

“We’re disappointed. We think the judge made some errors and we’ll be dealing with those and we’ve been discussing the matter with the county attorneys,” DeJana said. “I don’t think there’s any question that we will be trying to turn around the decision.”

He added that Allison had in part based the decision on his classification of the bridge as road, which led him to the conclusion that the permit application was incomplete from the beginning. DeJana also questioned whether the judicial branch has the authority to strike down the permit altogether.

The property owners behind the bridge project have already invested significant resources into the project, which was granted five extensions by the county before its completion earlier this year.

DeJana said he didn’t know how much his client had already invested, but said it’s “in excess of half a million dollars.”

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.