The hearing for a lawsuit seeking to put an injunction on a proposed Lakeside neighborhood plan was rescheduled to a later date after both sides agreed to hold off until a third-party investigation into the county planning department is completed.
The Oct. 16 show-cause hearing before Flathead District Court Judge Stewart Stadler was finished before it started, after County Attorney Jonathan Smith and Tammi Fisher, representing landowners from Lakeside and Somers who brought the suit, appeared briefly to tell Stadler of their new arrangement.
Lakeside and Somers landowners filed the lawsuit against the Lakeside Neighborhood Planning Committee, Flathead County and the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Department in June, claiming the county conducted secret planning efforts and broke state and federal laws.
As part of the Oct. 16 agreement, it was determined that the LNPC could keep working on the plan, but the Flathead County Planning Board is not allowed to work on the plan until after the rescheduled hearing.
Both sides also agreed that the new hearing should happen after the Kalispell-based Moonlighting Detective Agency is finished investigating the county planning office.
Flathead County Commissioners approved the third-party investigation after a group of Lakeside and Somers residents raised allegations of inappropriate uses of public funds, purposeful circumvention of public meeting laws and secretly conducting planning efforts in Lakeside. The group, which includes the conservative local organization American Dream Montana, also called for the resignation of Jeff Harris, the planning department director.
The investigators were originally hired in July at a rate of $75 an hour with a cap of $5,000. Last month, investigator Ike Eisentraut wrote a letter to the county commissioners expressing the need for more time to investigate. Eisentraut wrote that most of his time was spent reading and learning planning laws and processes. He also wrote that the original seven allegations had turned into 20 and he needed more time to investigate these leads.
On Sept. 30, The commissioners voted to increase the payment cap to $10,000, with a stipulation that the investigation would need to be finished by the end of October.
The planning department has refuted the allegations against them, saying in court documents that they are embellished and unfounded. The controversy arose after residents, including American Dream Montana, complained about a private Yahoo! group Web site being used by the volunteer neighborhood planning committee to share information and drafts of the plan.
A date has not been scheduled for the new hearing.