Board member's business duties challenged

Northwest Montana News Network

A former Flathead County Planning Board member contended that having the Flathead Building Association lobbyist on that board is a conflict of interest.

“The [planning] board is jeopardizing the commissioners and county with this blatant conflict of interest,” Don Hines told the Planning Board at the beginning of its Wednesday meeting.

Hines was referring to George Culpepper Jr., who was appointed to the board in December.

The Flathead Building Association hired Culpepper as its full-time government affairs director in January.

Previously he was the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors government affairs director, a post he assumed in 2007.

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, Hines called for the county Planning Board to discuss Culpepper's situation at the end of the meeting. The board did not do so when the meeting ended at 10:45 p.m.

A significant part of the Planning Board's recommendations affect whether homes and commercial buildings are constructed.

Roughly 360 businesses belong to the Flathead Building Association. Most are construction-related firms, although several banks, a few developers and The Daily Inter Lake (which owns the Eagle) also are members.

The association's Web site says one of its missions is to lobby local, state and federal governments on legislative and regulatory issues.

In 2008, the Flathead Building Association opposed stream setbacks in subdivision regulations that the Planning Board recommended to the county commissioners.

After Wednesday's board meeting, Culpepper declined to comment directly on the conflict-of-interest question and the situation where his job is to lobby in favor of construction work while as a board member he makes county government recommendations on projects and regulations that usually involve construction.

Culpepper said he is on the board solely as a property owner, not as a Flathead Building Association employee.

  “I will never bring my employment into the planning board,” he said.

Culpepper said he would recuse himself if any building association board members or the association itself goes before the Planning Board.

He noted that he was employed by the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors when the county commissioners appointed him to the Planning Board, and no one objected.

In 2008, when Culpepper was its government affairs director, the Realtors association:

• Lobbied against the stream setback recommendations that the Planning Board sent to the county commissioners.

• Challenged the legality of Whitefish City Attorney John Phelps' six-year contract, contending only two-year contracts are legal.

• Opposed Whitefish's drainage-oriented critical-areas law. The organization also alleged that Whitefish City Manager Gary Marks improperly told city staff members to approve any critical-area applications without scrutiny in Whitefish until some related lawsuits were settled. No wrongdoing by Marks was ever found.