I’m writing this letter to inform my fellow citizens that in March of 2011, a Missoula district court judge, the Bitterroot Conservation District (BCD), and other state officials perpetrated a fraud upon the Montana Supreme Court (SC), in the attorney fees phase of a SC case that was known as the “Mitchell Slough case.” They perpetrated that fraud by knowingly and illegally causing the SC to erroneously believe, and to erroneously rule, that prior to the time the BCD initiated a “public process” in January of 2001, purportedly to determine whether the slough was a “natural, perennial-flowing stream” that required protection under Montana’s Natural Streambed and Land Preservation Act (310 Law), the BCD did NOT abandon its regulatory duty to protect the slough under that law. That was part of the final ruling that the SC made in that case in March of 2011; but the final ruling that the SC made in that case was wrong because a fraud was perpetrated upon the Supreme Court. In January of 2010, the Missoula Independent newspaper tried to warn the public that a fraud was being perpetrated on the SC at that time, by publishing an article that was entitled, “Questionable Conclusion” and is excerpted here in italics:
Missoula District Court Judge Robert Deschamps III all but closed the book on the long and contentious legal battle over Mitchell Slough in early December when he ruled that roughly $350,000 in attorney fees was the responsibility of 16 landowners, and let the BCD off the hook… Deschamps exempted BCD from paying attorney fees based on the fact that it did not abandon its regulatory duty over the resource at issue… Michael Howell of the Bitterroot River Protection Association (BRPA), the plaintiff who won the slough case, says documents from the late 1990s indicate otherwise. ‘I would have to say, yeah, there’s evidence that prior to initiating this public process, they gave up jurisdiction over Mitchell Slough…’ Howell cites an October 1999 letter from the BCD to landowner Jack Pfau waiving the necessity for construction permits on the slough, effectively deeming the waterway a manmade ditch. But the letter predates the district’s official public process to re-designate the slough by several months…
In January of 2000, the Bitterroot Star, the Ravalli Republic, and the Missoulian newspapers published front-page photos of wealthy landowner Ken Siebel’s heavy equipment altering the slough, along with articles explaining that he was altering it without a “310 permit” at that time because the BCD abandoned it without a public process and without the public’s knowledge in October of 1999. Exactly one year after those photos and articles were published, the BCD tried to conceal its illegal acts by initiating its so-called “public process” in January of 2001, while pretending that it had NOT already abandoned the slough, and that it had NOT already allowed Siebel and other landowners to alter it without 310 permits as if it were a private ditch rather than a public stream.
All of those photos were taken from what used to be my home, but I no longer own that home due to what Siebel, three district court judges, and other state officials did to me, after I had complained to the BCD that it couldn’t abandon the slough without a public process, and that Siebel created standing water in the slough and mosquito infestations at my home. Siebel didn’t like that, and he retaliated against me for trying to redress the illegal acts of my own state government. The Missoula Independent wrote what about what Siebel did to me, in an article that was entitled, “The Battle for Mitchell Slough” which is excerpted here in italics:
One Bitterroot resident who has felt the split’s repercussions is Jerry Metully, Ken Siebel’s neighbor to the north. Metully has filed numerous lawsuits against Siebel regarding interactions the two have had over the Mitchell. The grudge started when Metully complained in May of 2003 about a mosquito nuisance created by a backbay that Siebel dug on the Mitchell after the BCD stopped issuing 310 permits. “The ranch manager said ‘These are for ducks. What, you don’t like ducks?’” Metully remembers. Later, Metully says, the manager told him, “You’re in this controversy up to your neck. Be a good neighbor or we’ll build a 20-foot fence and block your view.” “I didn’t even know what was going on,” Metully says, referring to the Mitchell controversy. “I learned more about it later. I was starting to get involved. Once I was involved he tried to scare me away.” One of the ways Siebel allegedly tried to dissuade Metully from speaking against the landowners was by resurveying his property line preparatory to construction of a fence that would have effectively cut off Metully’s access to the Mitchell. Siebel’s consultant, Clint Brown of Water Consulting Inc., suggested that the fence would solve the mosquito nuisance. District Judge James Haynes later required Siebel to abate the nuisance, and called the proposed barrier, which was never built, a “spite fence.” Still pending is another lawsuit filed by Metully, claiming he was never given required notice of the resurvey of his land. According to Metully, workers for Applebury Survey in the Bitterroot showed up on his property unannounced and began banging spikes into his front yard. Upon news of Metully’s lawsuit, Siebel filed a counterclaim asserting that he owned the land in question, and Metully’s driveway, too. “The law says that you have to go to court to solve these matters,” Metully says. “You can’t take the law into your own hands. If he rightfully owns that sliver of land, it doesn’t matter because I’m in possession. Until it’s decided in court he has to leave me alone.” Metully is waiting for the district court ruling on the BCD’s classification of the Mitchell before deciding if he’ll sue the Conservation District as well over the mosquito nuisance. “If it is a stream and they altered it without a permit, then I can draw the Conservation District into a suit,” Metully says. “If this thing is a stream, it should have been protected by law.”
Although I didn’t know it at the time, the BCD abandoned the slough in October of 1999, and the BCD and then-Ravalli County Attorney George Corn had been trying to privatize the slough since 1991 by declaring that it was a private ditch and by prohibiting the public from fishing there, while knowing that the MT Dept. of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) had determined that it was a natural stream that was therefore owned by the public and that, pursuant to Montana’s Stream Access Law (SAL), it was open to the public for recreational use. I also learned that the BCD abandoned the slough without a public process because Siebel wanted to use the BCD’s clandestine determination that the slough was a private ditch to ask then-Governor Judy Martz to order FWP to declare that it was a private ditch, and that it no longer was open to the public for recreational use. Siebel actually wrote a letter to Martz asking her to do that very thing. And although she didn’t do that, she did refuse to allow FWP to defend the public’s rightful ownership of the slough in the Mitchell Slough case, and because the BRPA had been left on its own to defend the public’s rightful ownership of it, the BRPA was awarded attorney fees in the case.
In April of 2016, I tried to submit a 61-page letter to four associate SC justices who I trust; to a federal judge in Great Falls who I trust who was a SC justice during the Mitchell Slough case; and to the U.S. Attorney for Montana, Michael Cotter; to inform them that state officials perpetrated a fraud upon the SC in the Mitchell Slough case and that when I tried to vindicate my own rights by filing two lawsuits against Siebel and one against Applebury Survey for what they had done to me, Ravalli County Judges James Haynes and Jeffrey Langton and Missoula County Judge Robert Deschamps fraudulently dismissed those lawsuits; and that Judge Deschamps subsequently allowed the SC court to uphold the ruling that he made in the attorney fees phase of the Mitchell Slough case, while knowing that his ruling was wrong. I also stated that over a period of years, Siebel, the BCD, those three judges, and other state officials violated the law and my rights to the extent that they eventually caused me to lose my home and land along the slough as well as at least $50,000 trying to vindicate my rights in a corrupt system of justice that corrupt state officials used to squash me like a bug — not only so that Siebel, his surveyor, and the BCD could get off the hook for what they did to me, but also so that the BCD and other state officials could continue trying to privatize the slough in the Mitchell Slough case.
Within days after I had filed that 60-page letter to the SC and to the federal court in Great Falls, the clerks of those courts sent that letter back to me without showing it to the four remaining associate SC justices who presided in the Mitchell Slough case, and without showing it to the federal judge who was a SC justice during the Mitchell Slough case. As of the date that I’m writing this letter to the editor of the Bitterroot Star and to my fellow citizens on May 23rd, the U.S. Attorney’s office has not sent that document back to me and it has not responded to me in any way, which makes me believe that somebody in the U.S. Attorney’s office received it but is not showing it to U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter, who is married to Associate SC Justice Patricia Cotter, who also presided in the Mitchell Slough case.
So now, I’m going to send another copy of that letter to Michael Cotter, this time by certified mail, return receipt requested; and I’m going to send a copy to Montana Attorney General Tim Fox in the same way, to see if anybody actually responds. In the meantime, due to the very serious nature of the allegations that I’m making, and based upon what has already been done to me, I’m concerned for my own safety. For that reason, I’m asking all of my fellow citizens to watch over me and to help me ensure that state and federal officials who I trust actually receive that 60-page letter, and that they fix what has been done to the public and to me. If anyone wants to read a copy of that letter they can email me at hutno.2016@gmail.com.
Jerry Metully
Missoula