Harris responds to allegations
Late last month, Flathead County planning director Jeff Harris submitted a formal response to the Flathead County Board of County Commissioners, regarding allegations of abuses brought before the commissioners in early July by supporters of the property-rights group American Dream Montana.
The document responds individually to each of the allegations presented by former Flathead County Commissioner Dale Williams and Kalispell attorney and mayoral candidate Tammi Fisher during the Wednesday, July 1 commissioners meeting.
In the response, Harris provides detailed information specific to each case, indicating that in their allegations Williams and Fisher had left out certain information in order to better support their claims. Harris refuted any claims of preferential treatment toward applicants or unfair treatment of others, outlining the lengths to which he and his staff went to address the issues in question to resolve conflicts with applicants who were not in compliance.
As expected, part of the response dealt with complaints concerning the guidance that the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office gave to the Lakeside Neighborhood Plan Committee (LNPC) regarding the process for updating the Lakeside plan, particularly the failure of the committee to properly notice a number of their meetings.
"The planning office recognized committee meetings were not being properly noticed, took steps to educate the committee regarding public notice," Harris states in response. "Following that, the committee began noticing all committee meetings."
Harris also addressed William's claim that the Planning Office and LNPC showed a disregard for open meeting laws in the LNPC's use of a private Yahoo! Group internet account.
Harris, in his response, describes the Yahoo! Group account as "an internet driven management tool" with "functions similar to the Microsoft Outlook program used by County employees to communicate."
Just as the Yahoo! Group account must be logged into before members may navigate to the Lakeside Group and check messages, Harris says County employees must first sign in, after turning on their computers, and then open their email program or server.
"Access is restricted to the county server and Microsoft Outlook to county staff, and information on the servers and Outlook is available to the public upon request," Harris says in the document. "This is similar to how the Yahoo! Group functioned. The information was available to the public upon request and was given to Donna Thornton upon her request to the Committee. Access to the site was restricted but by no means was it a 'secret' website, just as access to the county server is restricted but by no means is it a 'secret' server."
As for allegations concerning the number of e-mails or files deleted from the account, Harris explains that the account has limited storage capacity. As a result, he says, "files were uploaded and removed as they became relevant or irrelevant to the weekly meeting discussions."
Harris also refers to allegations that official business was conducted via the account, stating that during the entire period over which the account was operated only three instances occurred in which a committee member requested either approval of an item or a vote on a matter, none of which resulted in any action.
Harris also stressed that, once the first draft had been completed this April, the Yahoo! Group became unnecessary. Only five messages were sent through the account and only one file was uploaded that month. The draft neighborhood plan was presented to the Lakeside Community Council on April 28, at which time the Council approved its release to the public and initiated a public comment period on the first draft. According to Harris, the account has not been used by the committee since April.
Complaints regarding the committee's use of the account did not begin surfacing until sometime in May.