By Patti Eldredge, Victor
Open Letter to J. R. Iman, Greg Chilcott, and Jeff Burrows, Ravalli County Commissioners and to their legal advisers Howard Recht and Alan McCormick, concerning the Big Sky and Morado Mountain Settlements:
The recent editorial in the Bitterroot Star (August 26, 2015) excellently sums up a disturbing and mysterious series of actions taken by the five of you. Namely, awarding over $1 million to two developers in the form of hastily paid-out cash and county-funded road improvements. These generous settlements appear to have embarrassingly little legal justification, for reasons that were clearly outlined in the editorial. With the help of a lawyer, I too have examined the court records of the Big Sky case and agree with the facts stated in the editorial.
Not only were the amounts large and unnecessary, but the process by which you settled these cases was illegal, as determined by our district court. You did not allow for any public input, even though the Big Sky settlement document clearly states, in two places, that its execution is dependent on public notice and participation. Plus, this is not the first time you have been successfully sued for denying public participation in decisions that affect the taxpayers and citizens of this county. This is a puzzling approach for a group of leaders who represent themselves as being fiscally responsible and committed to the rule of law.
Why you choose to settle these suits out of court is also puzzling. As of February 2014, after over four years of back and forth court proceedings, the Big Sky case was all set to go to trial by jury. Had you followed through on this process, the relevant facts and rulings would have come to light. If the County was ordered to pay damages, at least the decision would not have been made behind closed doors, hastily, away from any public scrutiny. I would not be writing this letter, and you would not have been successfully sued by the Bitterroot Star.
You clearly owe a plausible explanation to the citizens and taxpayers, not the glib and evasive answers or stonewalling offered so far. And don’t try to blame it on the previous board of county commissioners. The available records show that any financial damage to the two developers was due to the crash of the housing market and economic downturn in 2008, not to any actions by the previous commissioners.
If you can’t explain these settlements in some believable way, you ought to resign or be recalled. Unless you can honestly tell us why you gave away over $1 million of our money, you do not deserve the public trust that has been placed in you.