Violations anger lake commitee
The chairman of the Whitefish Lake and
Lakeshore Protection Committee expressed outrage at a series of
lakeshore violations this fall in a letter to the Whitefish City
Council and requested guidance on how to proceed with similar cases
in the future.
Jim Stack described how a Kalispell
contractor violated regulations intended to protect water quality
in Whitefish Lake on several occasions while using an excavator to
install a water line at a property on the west side of the lake
north of Lion Mountain.
“What was most disconcerting to members
of the lakeshore committee was the fact that the contractor
proceeded with a second and subsequent third violation after being
notified by the Whitefish Planning Office to cease all work in the
lakeshore zone,” he said.
Stack has expressed concern in the past
that wealthy property owners along the lake are willing to pay
fines to get the kinds of development or shoreline changes they
want. But this case was different.
“My personal concern, as chairman, is
the attitude of the contractor at the lakeshore committee meeting
that the violations are not a problem if the end result complies
with regulations and the owner is willing to pay the after-the-fact
permit fee,” he said.
According to three letters city
planning director David Taylor sent property owners Ken and Pamela
Reaser, of Scottsdale, Ariz., their contractor, Paul Clark, began
work installing a water line across the 20-foot lakeshore
protection zone without a permit.
Heavy equipment was seen operating in
the lake itself as a trench was dug across the lakeshore protection
zone.
“Although the contractor was notified
and he stated he would stop construction until a permit was
obtained, the excavator continued to work the next day,” Taylor
wrote on Oct. 1.
Clark was given until Nov. 17 to apply
for after-the-fact permits. On Dec. 8, the lakeshore committee
reviewed Clark’s after-the-fact permit applications. Because the
waterline installation, removal, re-installation and placement of
gravel on the beach complied in the end with current lakeshore
regulations, the committee forwarded the applications to the city
council for their approval at their Jan. 3 meeting.
“The danger, or course, is the
precedent this may set — not only for this contractor, but for
other contractors as well,” Stack told the city council.
“Historically, we have found that raising the after-the-fact permit
fees or imposing the maximum $500 fine provides little deterrent to
a growing number of new lakeshore owners who have paid exorbitant
prices for their property. In the end, the only true deterrent is
either ‘restoration’ or ‘loss of use.’”
About five years ago, Stack told the
committee, the city council considered increasing the
after-the-fact permit by 10 times to discourage repeat offenders.
But the lakeshore committee had argued at the time against the
proposal in order to protect people who were truly innocent.
In the case of the Reaser violation,
the lakeshore committee tacked on a special condition to their
after-the-fact permit — “The contractor shall supply the name of
the sub-contracting excavator to the planning office, and the
committee requests that the city send a certified letter to both
the contractor and the excavator notifying them that if either is
found in violation again, they will be prosecuted by the city.”
Changed
perspective
Ron Hauf was the lakeshore committee
member who took photos of the excavator working on the Reasers’
water line installation. During the committee’s Dec. 8 meeting,
Hauf “expressed frustration with individuals who intentionally
violate the regulations, then deny that they are doing anything
wrong,” according to the minutes.
Hauf has been on the lakeshore
committee for three years, but he was not re-appointed by the
Flathead County Commissioners. Committee chairman Herb Peschel
noted that this was the first time a member who had re-applied had
not been re-appointed.
In what has been characterized as an
emotional comment, Hauf reacted to the commissioners’ decision to
appoint Dennis Konopatzke to his seat. He told the committee how he
was “originally convinced to get on the committee three years ago
by an anti-regulation group who continually attempt to undermine
the efforts of the committee,” according to the minutes.
Admitting that “in years back, he was
the ‘other guy’ creating problems on the lake,” Hauf explained that
over time he came to respect the work of the lakeshore committee
and that he now “cares more about the quality of the lake than his
own personal property, and will do whatever necessary to protect
it.”
Hauf went on to link Konopatzke to
political action committees involved in past city elections and to
Rick Blake, who maintained the Web site weloveourlake.com when the
lakeshore committee was drafting a rewrite of the lakeshore
regulations two years ago. Blake opposed the proposed changes.
Hauf, who grew up in Billings and
attended the University of Montana-Missoula, bought his property on
Whitefish Lake in 1986 and moved here full-time in 2005. His
property is nonconforming and he initially was sympathetic to
others who were concerned about the regulation rewrite, but he
voted for the new regulations because, he told the Pilot, in the
end they were “mostly more lenient.”
“They will never be perfect, they will
never make everyone happy,” he said.
His vote, he believes, led to his
“earmarking” by the ”anti-regulation” group that he claims
influenced the county commissioners’ decision to appoint Konopatzke
— “although I can’t prove it,” he added.
Hauf considers himself an
independent-minded person who believes in common sense, but he’s
also convinced water quality in Whitefish Lake is worsening.
“I’ve seen declines in the past 20
years,” he said. “Every year, there’s algae growing on my dock
floats — I’ve never seen that before.”
Hauf says he’s a strong supporter of
property rights, but protecting the water quality of the lake is
more important.
“If people need to build back away from
the lake, then that’s what should be done,” he said. “They can
paint their house pink with purple polka dots, as long as it meets
zoning regulations and doesn’t harm the quality of the water in the
lake.”
People are always trying to bend the
rules, he said, but “I’ve gotten older and wiser regarding
protection of the water quality of the lake.”
Hauf said serving on the lakeshore
committee is a “thankless job” and he had to be convinced to
re-apply. But with his good track record of attending 27 of the 31
lakeshore committee meetings in three years, and with the
commissioners recently deciding not to re-appoint Tim Grattan to
the airport board because he no longer lives full-time in the
Flathead, Hauf wanted to know why they chose Konopatzke, a member
of the Whitefish City-County Planning Board who has missed four of
their last 10 meetings and attended two by telephone.
Common
sense
Konopatzke is an attorney and local
businessman who owns the Great Northern Brewery and Woodtech
Trading, a door manufacturing company in Columbia Falls, and has a
home on Whitefish Lake. He told the Pilot he’s often on the road
conducting business in Dallas, Washington, D.C., and
California.
He began taking a more active role in
Whitefish politics during the 2007 city elections when he helped
form a political action group called Quality Whitefish. The group,
which still exists, does not support or oppose candidates but
instead organizes candidate forums.
Blake, a personal friend of
Konopatzke’s, decided that year to form his own one-man PAC, Common
Sense in Whitefish Government, so he could support candidates for
city council. Blake later sued in Flathead County District Court to
have John Muhlfeld, a long-time member of the lakeshore committee,
removed from the city council, claiming Muhlfeld was not a city
resident. A judge ruled against Blake, and Muhlfeld stayed on the
council.
Konopatzke told the Pilot he has a lot
of friends on the lake, but “it’s tough finding people willing to
serve on volunteer boards.” One of his goals is to see more
transparency on the lakeshore committee, but he didn’t know of any
current “hot button” issues that need to be addressed.
“I want to apply common sense,” he
said. “This is a small town.”
Konopatzke said government is sometimes
“overreaching” with its regulations, and property rights are
affected.
“What I always look at is what’s fair,
what is the end goal, what are we trying to accomplish,” he
said.
An example of overreaching to some
lakeshore committee critics would be the committee’s support at
their Dec. 8 meeting of a text amendment to the lakeshore
regulations allowing stone-facing on vertical concrete structures
in the lakeshore protection zone. Some people would argue that such
regulations have nothing to do with protecting water quality and
instead are all about lakeshore aesthetics.
In an e-mail to the lakeshore
committee, member Sharon Morrison, a Whitefish attorney, said she
would be unable to attend the meeting but that she opposed the text
amendment.
“As you know, I don’t believe that the
lakeshore regulations can legally prohibit anything outright,” she
explained.
A county appointee who has missed nine
of the committee’s last 21 meetings, Morrison said she supported
the staff report on the Reaser violation and would recommend
approval of it to the city council.