Developers discuss problems with county planner

Mineral County landowners and developers filled every chair in the Mineral County Commissioners’ Room Thursday to talk with commissioners about problems with the Mineral County Planning Department and possible solutions.

The commissioners heard comments from 15 different developers and community members, each presenting their own problems and solutions.

The meeting was schedule in response to an uproar at a meeting with commissioners and developer Scott Cooney. The meeting took place on June 11 and many landowners showed up to the meeting and spoke out against the Mineral County Planning Department and its head, Tim Read.

Read is the Mineral County Planner and Sanitarian and he has come under attack from land owners who feel that he is misusing his position to interfere with developments in Mineral County.

Attorney Lance Jasper said that Read and his department have taken a stance against sub developments in Mineral County and have used obstructions tactics to block many developments in the area.

Mineral County Attorney Shaun Donovan spoke out at the beginning of Thursday’s meeting and said that their main purpose is to hear facts and suggestions for a solution, and that they were not there to listen to personal attacks on Read.

Jasper said that his main concern was that there be a mission statement for the county planner and that he be help up to that standard.

“No one’s asked for a free ride, but they’ve asked for a fair ride, and that’s what’s most important here. No one’s asking that there not be a planner or someone to hold accountable in that the rules are followed when developing your property, but in Montana when you own property you have a right to do what you want with it under the law,” Jasper said.

He called for an established protocol within the office so that things could get done in a timely and fair manner.

Ron Warren, from Rocky Mountain Surveyors, said that the planning and sanitation departments should be separated. He said that in most other counties he has worked in the two departments are separate and with the growth in Mineral County it is too much for one man to do by himself.

“It has developed into a situation where it needs two people and I think the planning and the sanitation need to be separated. There’s a conflict of interest between those two departments,” said Warren.

Warren suggested that since it is difficult and expensive for the county to simply start up a new office that they look into the option of having a private contractor do the planning work in Mineral County and have Read do all of the sanitation work. He added that there is plenty of work as the county sanitarian to keep Read busy.

Tony Banovich, a private planner who has worked with Warren, was at the meeting and spoke with commissioners about how independent planners can work with counties.

“Sometimes they just set up groups that are within a list that a developer can go to and contract with and then that company would just follow through doing state and federal regulations or other documents that allow the nuts and bolts to happen on a more timely basis,”

Developers Mike Galloway and Ollie St. Claire said that even if they divide up the job of planner and sanitarian, Read is the main problem with the department and they asked that he be removed from his position.

“The guy that’s in that position with the power, if you relegate him back to his original position, it’s just another stepping stone and we’ll be here in a year pleading for that position to be abrogated,” St. Claire said.

St. Claire said that he and Galloway had met with Read for several projects and felt that he simply wrote their projects off as those that would not pass.

“I don’t’ know anything about Tim Read personally, but I do know what a planner should be doing. They should be advocating for the correct methodologies, the correct construction, helping us, advising us and like Mike said, adversarial is what you tend to run up against with him,” St. Claire said.

At the previous meet, Jasper said that many people were afraid to come out and speak because they had been threatened by Read that their developments will be stopped if they try to go around him in the planning process.

Bruce Bailey, owner of the OK Café, said that he was nervous about speaking at the meeting because of threats he had received from Read that their business would be shut down. He said that after receiving these threats he hired Jasper as his lawyer and things had gone much more smoothly.

Developers had until Monday to turn in any comments. The commissioners plan to look over them and schedule another meeting in which to discus their findings.