Commissioner warns about ordinance

Editor's note: The following letter was recently sent by Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall to Mayor Mike Jenson and the Whitefish City Council.

A little over four years ago, we, the commissioners of Flathead County, urged our citizens of Flathead County located within the 2-mile zone in and around Whitefish, to accept the Whitefish City Council's proposal for zoning and planning authority over this area.

We did this after being repeatedly assured by those governing Whitefish at the time that the interests of the property holders in this zone would be protected and afforded utmost consideration in all of the decisions affecting their properties.

Unfortunately, this has not proven to be the case. We have attempted over the past months to work with the prior mayor and members of the Whitefish City Council to address the property interests of those in this zone, all to no avail.

We do especially appreciate your efforts, Mr. Mayor, to find a solution to this difficult situation. We are now up against the time deadline for a final decision.

There have been more than 300 letters sent to the Whitefish staff and council stating concerns for the Critical Areas Ordinance, and many of these residents were from the "doughnut" area.

As county commissioners, the elected representatives of our extraterritorial residents, we have attempted to work in concert with the council on this issue. Now faced with the Feb. 19 first reading and consequential adoption by March 3, we must take action to protect these taxpaying citizens of Flathead County.

The w will bring to property owners in the "doughnut" area nothing but enormous cost, regulatory burdens and a steep decline in property rights and, potentially, property values.

Rather than doing the truly hard work of developing a real, understandable solution designed to protect our land, lakes and rivers for generations to come, this ordinance, perhaps unintentionally, instead crafted an incoherent document of crushing complexity and cost.

The most recent information is that the community of Whitefish would have to hire five new people to attempt to administer this flawed ordinance at a cost of more than $250,000 annually. This should be reason enough to re-assess this current proposal and either start the process over or abandon it altogether for the sake of all taxpayers and constituents.

Remember, the original objective was to protect water, which everyone agrees with.

We have repeatedly made clear to you that we will not tolerate the imposition of extreme measures such as the CAO on the residents living outside the city limits of Whitefish. The decision has been made to ignore our request for eliminating these properties from CAO jurisdiction.

Indeed, we now fully anticipate that your next step could be to annex those properties, as you did with Whitefish Lake, resulting in increased taxes and regulation on the "doughnut" residences. This is an outcome that we must avoid at all costs.

Therefore, please be advised that if you do not eliminate the "doughnut" areas from the jurisdiction of the CAO before its second reading on March 3, we will do everything in our power to rescind the agreement allowing the city of Whitefish continued authority over the properties in the "doughnut" area.

We also fully realize the litigation that will ensue, and for the sake of all of our taxpayers, we would ask that you consider our intent.

We also would ask you to consider the millions of dollars of unfunded liability this ordinance will create to your city taxpayers, who are also county residents.

We look forward to your prompt attention to this matter. The property rights and values of our citizens depend on it, and they deserve nothing less.

Gary D. Hall is Flathead County Commissioner for the north valley.