Lakeside plan to remain on hold

All that remains before the Lakeside Plan can be implemented is a consideration by the court and a ruling to lift the preliminary injunction granted by Judge Stewart Stadler in February 2011.

Currently, the preliminary injunction is the only obstruction to putting the plan in motion. The preliminary injunction was put in place before the rulings in favor of the defendants and was sought by the plaintiffs after the county commissioners adopted the plan in Dec. 2010. This prevented implementation of the plan until the judge rules upon the two remaining allegations.

The first remaining allegation is an amended one, filed after the injunction. The allegation is that some of the meeting places from when the Lakeside Plan was written were not ADA compliant as they were held in people's homes.

“At the time, nobody requested ADA accessibility,” Lakeside Community Council Secretary Barb Miller said. “All the meetings after Oct. 13, 2008 were at public places.”

The second remaining allegation is that LCC deleted public records. Miller claims they were primarily Yahoo Group e-mails for meeting reminders and were deleted due to storage space limitations.

“There might have been a few e-mails, but were of no consequence,” Miller said. “The county is unsure if they should be classified as public records.”

All allegations except those two were found in favor of the defendants, Lakeside Neighborhood Plan Committee, Lakeside Community Council and Flathead County. The remaining two allegations supposedly do not invalidate the Lakeside Plan and should not deter implementation.

The county filed a motion to lift the injunction with the court on Nov. 2, 2011 and the plaintiffs filed a motion of opposition shortly after. The county filed their reply to the opposition on Nov. 25, 2011.

As of Feb. 9, Stadler is set to retire at the end of his term and Judge David Ortley will be brought up to speed so he can rule on lifting the injunction at a yet to be decided upon date.