After Whitefish voters overwhelmingly repealed a 2010 interlocal agreement with Flathead County last week, the question of what comes next is generating vastly different answers with potential legal implications.
Whitefish City Attorney Mary VanBuskirk says the two sides now revert back to their 2005 interlocal agreement, which gave Whitefish land-use authority over the roughly two-mile planning doughnut surrounding city limits, including Whitefish Lake.
But Flathead County Commissioner Jim Dupont says the 2005 agreement no longer exists because the 2010 agreement superseded it. VanBuskirk counters that the 2010 accord was only an amendment to the 2005 agreement, which she believes has once again become the working document.
“That’s a legal opinion that we’re going to argue over,” Dupont said.
Dupont plans to make a recommendation for the county’s next move after examining the results of a survey sent out to doughnut property owners in which they were asked whether they prefer Whitefish or the county to govern them. Also, the county is still waiting for the city to respond to its decision back in June to terminate the interlocal agreement, though that may be a moot point now.
In Dupont’s estimation, with the 2010 agreement repealed, the county can choose to assume control of the doughnut.
“We think that the ’05 agreement is dead and buried,” Dupont said. “That’s going to be the county’s stance. Where we go from there, I don’t know. We’re either going to take over jurisdiction or work something out.”
Quietly resting on the edges of these conversations is the ever-present prospect of more litigation. In an October letter to the editor, Bill Kahle, a Whitefish councilor who represents the city on the committee that drafted the 2010 agreement, predicted lawsuits if the referendum passed. He pleaded for voters to deny the ballot measure.
“If the referendum passes,” Kahle warned in the letter, “uncertainty, chaos, and lawsuits will ensue.”
In an interview last week, Kahle stood by his assertions, though he added that he agrees with VanBuskirk’s interpretation of the city and county now reverting back to the 2005 agreement.
“I don’t think (litigation) is a possibility; I think it’s an inevitability,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way a lawsuit won’t happen.”
With that said, Kahle is holding out hope for constructive conversation outside of the courtroom. The ad-hoc doughnut committee, even with the referendum passing, plans to meet again to discuss what options the city and county have from here, though Kahle said as of last week no date had been set.
Kahle said he hopes Frank Sweeney and Richard Hildner, who played key roles in organizing the referendum and were elected to the council in last week’s election, have a plan now that their measure has passed.
“Those two guys are very smart and I trust they have a plan moving forward,” Kahle said. “I just don’t know what it is yet.”
The plan, Sweeney said last week, is to start a serious discussion about creating a community council consisting of elected doughnut representatives. Sweeney and other council supporters believe this is the only way to achieve true representation for doughnut residents.
“The grand plan relates to bringing the county back to the table,” Sweeney said, “to draft what amounts to, in my view, a more reasonable and appropriate agreement establishing a community-level council that would be a voice for the actual residents of the doughnut as opposed to purely the property owners. I think that’s ultimately the goal.”