Supreme Court rejects request for Nov. 7 election

The Montana Supreme Court has denied a request from a Creston-area resident to force Flathead County to set a Nov. 7 countywide election for a ballot issue on expanding the Egan Slough Zoning District.

The high court’s ruling late Monday means the earliest opportunity for county voters to decide whether the zoning district should include property where a water-bottling plant is proposed will be the June 2018 primary election.

Amy Waller, who lives near the proposed bottling plant east of Kalispell, unsuccessfully sought intervention twice last week from Flathead District Court to have the election held Nov. 7, which this year includes only local municipal races. When District Judge Heidi Ulbricht denied Waller’s requests for a writ of mandamus, Waller’s attorney, Tom Esch, asked the state Supreme Court to compel the county to set the election this year.

Esch had asked the commissioners on two separate occasions to set a Nov. 7 election, citing a state law that calls for the governing body to submit a ballot issue to voters at the next regular or primary election.

The Yes! For Farms and Water group successfully conducted a petition drive to create a ballot issue for the district expansion, collecting 12,455 valid signatures in less than 60 days.

The goal of expanding the district is to include the acreage where Lew Weaver of the Montana Artesian Water Co. plans to build a bottling facility and thereby stop the project.

In its order, the state Supreme Court maintains this year’s municipal election essentially is not a “regular” election.

Elections in odd-numbered years are for city elections but don’t include county, state or federal races.

“Waller has not provided any authority that an election on an initiative must be held on general election day in an odd-numbered year,” the high court wrote, adding that state law “contemplates that a local initiative or referendum will be placed on ‘the next regular or primary’ election ballot. It does not appear, and Waller has not shown in the documents presented, that a regular countywide election is scheduled to be held this November; the statute does not contemplate the calling of a special election.”

Esch said that while the high court’s decision isn’t the outcome he and his client wanted, “to their credit [the Montana Supreme Court] were very prompt” in their response.

Waller was involved in the original zoning effort that used citizen-initiated zoning to create the Egan Slough Zoning District in 2002. At the time, farmers and other landowners rallied to preserve farmland when a youth camp was proposed on 160 acres.

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