County planning director, under investigation, responds to allegations

Whitefish Pilot

A restricted Web site and other open-meeting issues that marred neighborhood-planning efforts in Lakeside and Somers has sparked a concerted outcry against the Flathead County Planning Department and its director that has spilled across the valley to other neighborhoods.

Property owners and a vocal property-rights organization have filed suit to stop the Lakeside and Somers neighborhood planning process. They have also convinced two of the Flathead County Commissioners to hire a private detective to investigate allegations of public process violations and misuse of county funds.

While county planning department officials have admitted some errors in how the public process proceeded in Lakeside and Somers, county planning director Jeff Harris has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has welcomed an investigation.

Harris recently responded to allegations made during a July 1 hearing on the matter before the county commissioners. The two-inch thick report addresses 34 allegations, of which about half were expense-related allegations brought by former county commissioner Dale Williams.

Other allegations were made by Tammi Fisher, a Kalispell attorney and mayoral candidate who represented several property owners she claims were wronged by Harris and county planners, and by Russ Crowder, whose organization American Dream Montana has run full-page advertisements criticizing the planning department.

The allegations began April 7 when Donna and Dennis Thornton, who own land in Somers and Lakeside and belong to American Dream Montana, complained to the county commissioners that 23 of the 50-or-so meetings to draft a Lakeside neighborhood plan had not been advertised and copies of the draft plan were not available.

The matter grew ugly on June 15 when planners called for sheriff’s deputies after property owners at a meeting on the Somers neighborhood plan grew unruly. Harris was prevented from starting the meeting when audience members called him a “snot-nosed planner” and told to “kiss off.”

Kathy Robertson, a 2006 county commissioner candidate and supporter of the Somers neighborhood plan, said she felt personally threatened by opponents. Donna Thornton, who claimed she was not among the 422 Somers-area property owners who were notified about the planning process, admitted the next day that “emotions got the best of us.”

A private, by-invitation-only, Yahoo Web site used by the group developing the Lakeside neighborhood plan was ordered shut down by county attorney Jonathan Smith on June 23. Smith said he wasn’t sure if the Web site was illegal, “but we don’t like government agencies to do things the public can’t see.”

American Dream Montana had requested membership to the Web site on May 1, but Barb Miller, who set up the Web site, told county planner Andrew Hagemeier three days later that the organization’s request would expire in 14 days “if I take no action, and right now I intend on taking no action.”

“I want to make it clear that the Web site was set up to help with the logistics of the neighborhood planning process,” Miller explained at the time. “There was no collusion, no secrecy and no conspiracy.”

Donna Thornton, who was eventually allowed access to the Web site, claimed 257 e-mails were missing since the site was created in late 2007.

Two dozen Somers and Lakeside property owners filed suit against Harris and the county in Flathead County District Court on June 25, alleging violations of the state’s open-meeting laws. They asked for injunctions to stop the Somers and Lakeside neighborhood plans — and any other neighborhood planning in the county until the court declares an appropriate process.

American Dream Montana hosted a public forum on the escalating issues at the Red Lion Hotel in Kalispell on June 29. Donna Thornton presented numerous allegations she claimed was evidence of wrongdoing by the county planning department. Montanans For Multiple Use spokesman Clarence Taber MC’d the forum.

“If you do things secretly and privately, you’re leaving people out,” Taber said at the time.

At a July 1 meeting before the county commissioners, former county commissioner Dale Williams recommended an audit of the planning department and suggested Harris either resign or be fired as planning director.

“In all my years of public service, I’ve not witnessed such callous disregard of public trust,” Williams told the commissioners, claiming planners took upgraded hotel rooms during a conference in Reno and the department spent $4,300 developing a new logo.

“Why should we lap them in luxury?” Williams asked the commissioners. “I’m absolutely aghast.”

County commissioners Dale Lauman, R-Somers, and Jim Dupont, R-Coram, were apparently swayed by the numerous allegations brought at the July 1 meeting. Two weeks later, they agreed to spend $5,000 hiring Ike Eisentraut and Moonlighting Detective Agency to investigate American Dream Montana’s claims.

Commissioner Joe Brenneman, D-Kalispell, was absent. Lauman said an independent investigation would lend credibility to the commissioners’ review of the allegations.

“He’ll do a good job for us,” Lauman said at the time. “We think this will resolve the issue.”

Harris said he had reviewed all the information presented by American Dream Montana and was confident he would be exonerated.

“I know I’ve done nothing wrong,” he said at the time.

Harris’ lengthy response to the allegations begins by addressing Kalispell attorney Tammi Fisher’s allegations that Harris and county planners did not fairly handle requests by Bruce Tutvedt for a gravel pit operation and by Gary Krueger for a concrete batch plant operation, both in the West Valley Zoning District.

Tutvedt, a West Valley farmer and Republican state senator representing rural Whitefish, applied for a conditional-use permit for a gravel pit in June 2005. The county Board of Adjustment initially approved the permit, but it was appealed by a local neighborhood group and eventually the case reached the Montana Supreme Court. The Board of Adjustment granted Tutvedt’s permit again in August 2008.

Fisher claimed Tutvedt spent an additional $25,000 getting his permit approved, but Harris said the process was fair and he was relying on the opinions of the county attorney’s office once the matter went into litigation. He also questioned Fisher’s drafting of a “staff report” and “findings” for the West Valley Land-Use Advisory Committee.

“To introduce something as potentially damaging as an applicant-sponsored ‘staff report’ to a LUAC places an unfair burden on the LUAC as well as planning office staff,” Harris said.

As for Krueger, Harris said a concrete batch plant is not allowed as a permitted or conditional use in the West Valley Zoning District. Harris said Krueger also had a fair hearing, and the Board of Adjustment unanimously turned the application down.

As for the meetings in homes and the private Web site that marred the Lakeside neighborhood planning process, Harris said the planning department took steps to correct the matter once it became known.

Harris also addressed Fisher’s allegation that county planner George Smith called Randy Leavitt, a property owner on Echo Lake, a “thief and a liar” after Harris and Smith determined Leavitt had violated lakeshore regulations. She claimed it took Leavitt two summers to complete his work and cost him an additional $5,000.

The county planning office issued Leavitt an “emergency permit” to help him prevent shoreline erosion, Harris said, but instead of spreading eight cubic yards of gravel six inches deep, Leavitt allegedly spread 120 cubic yards to a depth of 18 inches and erected a stone wall without a permit.

“Ms. Fisher conveniently leaves out particular details in the accusation,” Harris said.

It was while Harris, Smith and deputy county attorney Peter Steele were meeting with Leavitt that “the meeting was terminated when Mr. Leavitt lost emotional control,” Harris said. But Harris also admits that “Smith did lose his cool, but George’s recollection was that he said, ‘I don’t know if you are a liar or a fool, but I don’t tolerate either well, so I will leave this meeting now.”

Harris also addressed 17 allegations regarding department expenses. In one instance, the planning director provided evidence from a hotel supervisor refuting former commissioner Williams’ claim that county planners attending a national floodplain managers conference in Reno, Nev., stayed in rooms with a Jacuzzi and a “walk-in shower big enough for a small army.”

The rooms in the John Ascuaga’s Nugget Resort, where the conference was held, “do not have Jacuzzi baths or oversized walk-in showers,” Harris said, and planners paid the conference rate of $135 plus taxes and fees per night.

Harris’ complete response, which is a report to the county commissioners, is available for review at the county planning office in Kalispell.