Landowners threaten lawsuit over county planner

Mineral County landowners voiced their complaints about the county planner about the head of the Mineral County Planning and Sanitation Office at a heated meeting with the Mineral County commissioners in their office Wednesday.

“It’s a joke around the whole of western Montana right now because of the way this area is. But it’s not a joke because the people like us that are property owners are taking it really, really bad,” said lawyer and property owner Lance Jasper.

According to Jasper, Tim Read, who serves as the county’s flood plain administrator, county sanitarian, county health officer, and county planner, has taken a stance against subdevelopments in Mineral County. He said that actions by the office have caused several developments to go belly up and many developers will not deal with Mineral County because of the situation.

The meeting was originally scheduled as a hearing for property owner Scott Cooney, who planned to talk about problems he had while dealing with the Mineral County Planning Office. Nearly 30 other land owners came to voice their complaints about the office and its head.

“It’s going to be a barrier for you. I can assure there’s not a lot of developers that are going to take the risk of being here,” Cooney said about the department.

Jasper said that thanks to obstructionist tactics taken on by Read, Cooney was going to have to spend $150,000 more in interest on a development project near the Clark Fork River.

Cooney said the extra cost has forced him to price the homes he is selling out of the range of many locals and that as long as Tim Read is the Mineral County planner, he will not do another development in the area.

“It’s going to be an elite few who can afford to live by the river instead of the way it should be and that should be the locals who have grown up and committed their life to serving their county,” Cooney said.

Cooney left after he was heard by the commissioners,but the other land owners stayed to voice their concerns with what some said was a broken system.

“Rest assured, we’re not coming to lynch anyone, we’re coming with facts, but you need to listen to these facts because we’re here to prevent lawsuits,” said developer Ollie St. Clair.

Jasper suggested that the commissioners create a job description or mission statement for Read and the planning office to prevent him from further affecting developers. “I think that by giving someone so much leeway and latitude that you’re allowing authority that shouldn’t be delegated out to Mr. Read,” Jasper said.

Jasper said that these people had come to the commissioners to prevent a lawsuit against the county, but assured the commissioners that the landowners in Mineral County would take legal action if they had to.

Mineral County Attorney Shaun Donovan said that while he takes the threat of a lawsuit very seriously, often in American business lawsuits are just used as threats and he and the commissioners had no intention of just bending over.

“We don’t want to be sued at all, but we cannot, I’m speaking for the county here and my office, we can’t back down every time someone threatens to sue us just because we’re afraid of getting sued. We have to reconsider if we’re wrong or if somebody’s telling us that we’re not being fair,” Donovan said.

Jasper said his accusations against Read and the office are well documented and that he had a strong legal case against the county.

“I’m saying a lot of things here that are accusatory and I don’t normally do that unless I’m carrying it in my back pocket. It’s not in my nature to just go out and say something but you’ve got a real problem and it’s documented,” Jasper said.

Donovan said that this was the first he or the commissioners had heard of any problems with Read and they were not going to make any judgment without proof from the landowners. “I’ve got some concern here. Lance has been using words, this is documented and that’s documented, well there’s nothing documented so far. I’m not saying proof doesn’t exist, but there’s nothing that has been documented. I haven’t seen and I don’t think this board has seen one shred of stuff that would begin to support the very serious accusations you’re making,” Donovan said.

Commissioner Judy Stang said Friday that she does not feel that Read is intentionally working against subdividers. She said some of the land owners at the meeting might not fully understand the laws surrounding developments in the area, while others may have legitimate complaints.

“I think what’s happened is that we’ve got the guy overworked,” Stang said. “He’s a really good employee and he gets lot done so we need to get something worked out so the public can get their needs met with that office.”

Stang said that it is not unusual to hear complaints about public employees, but the sheer volume of this makes it something they need to look at carefully.

Donovan said that while he was sure that people had valid complaints, he wanted to make sure people were concerned with fixing what could be wrong with the process rather than going after Read. “I just hope that this doesn’t become some sort of a witch hunt,” Donovan said.

Jasper said many people he had spoken to about Read are afraid to talk with the commissioners because they have projects they are working on and they fear retaliation from him.

“There are actually people, if you can believe this, residents of this county, that are afraid to come forward and talk to you about it because they’ve got a deal going on and they’re so scared of retaliation by the county planner,” Jasper said.

A few members of the audience sat up and spoke to the commissioners about specific problems they have had with the planning office.

“We were told in no uncertain terms that if we went forward and even talked to a city council member, let alone talked to the city council, that the planner would take that to mean that we were trying to subvert the planning process. We were informed that that was illegal and our little subdivision would never cross his desk,” said developer Mike Galloway.

“You’ve enacted a policy of subdivision, if a person follows that policy they damn well should be able to do what they want with their property. They shouldn’t be at every point in time be told that no I can’t do this or you can’t do that,” Jasper said.

When Donovan and Jasper began talking about the organization of another meeting to hear all the grievances, Stang said that each person who wanted to talk with the commissioners should be allowed one minute to do so. She later said that she meant it would be unreasonable for people to talk for too long individually because of time constraints, many people in the audience were upset that their time to speak would be limited.

“You can’t give people a minute with their entire life. You’re talking about someone’s entire livelihood when they spent a year dealing with Tim Read,” Jasper said.

St. Clair stormed out of the meeting saying, “I guess if you think we only deserve a minute I just need to tell you to get the papers prepared.”

Donovan said that those who wanted to talk with the commissioners should get their complaints written down and while there may be a time limit based on reasonable constraints, everyone who wanted to would be heard.

“I think it’s a necessary process and an essential part of the process that citizens have a right to come to the commissioners. I think that keeps us more accountable and makes you feel like you’ve got more control and that what you think matters because it does matter,” Donovan said.

Jasper also mentioned that he would like to arrange a way for those that were afraid to talk about their problems with the office to be heard confidentially.

A meeting for concerned landowners has been set for Thursday at 10 a.m. at the Mineral County Commissioners’ Office in Superior.

“It’s a terrible thing to hear anybody say I don’t want to come to your county and do business because I don’t think I’m being treated fairly. If that’s true then it’s a sad thing that we need to fix,” said Donovan.