This is the third time you and your newspaper have misled the citizens of Ravalli County on the same issue of Saddle Hills Subdivision Settlement. You have not checked out what your sources are telling you.
1. Grandstaff is quoted as saying “Aldo & Niki Sardot are also the developers of a subdivision across the Missoula county line.”
Response: We own a ranch – we don’t own any subdivisions in Missoula County.
2. Ohnstad is quoted as saying “…over 500 loads of materials to the Sardot’s Missoula County development site.”
Response: Neither Sardots nor Red Quill Ranch have hauled 500 loads or even five loads to Red Quill Ranch. Another owner of a Missoula subdivision hauled loads.
3. Ohnstad is quoted as saying “other culverts in the area that went under the roadway were removed and not replaced because they were not needed.”
Response: This is the whole problem … finally he says he took out culverts but didn’t replace them. Who would lessen an existing road and then pave over it with no drainage plan? Our settlement didn’t include language, “county to build a faulty road by taking out existing drainage culverts and simply paving over a steep dirt hill.”
For three years we worked on and complied with all rules and regulations. We were sufficient and approved by the then Planning Department. The Commissioners said we would never get our subdivision and they would make an example of us; then they proceeded to break subdivision laws and the two constitutions. They also took 40% of our land and made it unbuildable using false testimony. After they turned down the subdivision we on three occasions offered to donate all of the material and they would do the labor to repair Upper Woodchuck Road (a County road which we had no responsibility to take care of – but it was in dangerous condition). The ousted Commissioners turned us down. This is why at the settlement they lost and were required to pave Upper Woodchuck Road as a partial payment for damages of $1.6 million to Saddle Hills, LLC.
The existing Commissioners have nothing to do with all of the damages that the old Commissioners caused the County to pay. They weren’t there!
Niki Sardot
Saddle Hills LLC