Agenda - Planning Commission - 11/07/2013

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Zoning Bulletin October 10, 2013 1 Volume 7 I Issue 19 voiding of the county commissioner's adoption of the planning com- mittee's neighborhood plan. The Background/Facts: In March 2007, Flathead County adopted the Flathead County Growth Policy (the "Growth Policy"). Under that new Growth Policy, the Flathead County Planning Board (the "Plan- ning Board") determined that the 1995 Lakeside Neighborhood Plan required revisions. To that end, in October 2007, the Lakeside Com- munity Council created the Lakeside Neighborhood Planning Commit- tee (the "LNPC") to assist with the update of the earlier plan. For the first year of its existence, the LNPC worked on drafting a new plan or revising the old plan. The Committee held numerous meetings, most of which were held in private residences without adequate notice or invitation to the public. LNPC also created a password -protected, privateYahoo Group Web site for the exclusive use of LNPC members. Eventually, the Flathead County Attorney advised LNPC that it was subject to the "open meeting" laws and must hold public meetings in publicly -accessible places with proper notice. All LNPC meetings held after October 13, 2008, were properly noticed and held at the Lakeside Library. In any case, in June 2009, numerous Lakeside property owners (the "Landowners") filed a lawsuit against LNPC and Flathead County. They alleged that LNPC had violated Montana's open meeting laws by conducting Plan -related meetings in private and on a "secret" Web site (i.e., a password -protected Yahoo Group Web site message board). However, in May 2010 the parties stipulated to holding the cause of ac- tion in abeyance until the Commissioners either approved or rejected the recommended Plan. The Planning Board ultimately approved the revised Lakeside Neighborhood Plan as submitted by LNPC in September 2010 (the "Plan"). The County Commissioners adopted the Plan in December 2010. Upon adoption of the Plan, the complaint was revived in district court and the action proceeded. The Landowners sought to have the Plan declared void as a result of the alleged open meeting law violations. Under Montana statutory law—§ 2-3-114, MCA —"the district courts of the state have jurisdiction to set aside an agency decision . . . ." Sec- tion 2-3-213, MCA, states: "Any decision made in violation of [§ ] 2-3- 203 [i.e., the open meetings law] may be declared void by a district court having jurisdiction." The district court agreed that LNPC was a "public or governmental body" required to "make all its meetings open to the public" under Article II, Section 9 of the Montana Constitution and § 2-3-203, MCA. And, the court found that LNPC violated the open meetings laws. However, it also concluded that voiding the Plan was not an appropriate © 2013 Thomson Reuters 9