By L.M. Mikolaichik, Darby
Offer to Ravalli County Commissioners:
A peaceful resolution concerning the Hughes Creek gate.
I have read in the papers that you are stating that Ravalli County commissioners are acting in good faith. Is this true? If so, I have an offer for you Ravalli County commissioners.
Prove your good faith.
Hear an appeal to your commissioners’ decision concerning the nature of the roadway (public or private). The gate sits on my land.
If it is proven that the county has a road through my land, I will open the gate.
If it is shown by the evidence that the 1900 county roadway did not go beyond my gate, then I ask you to do the right thing and give us landowners the peace we deserve and reverse your decision. Let the actual facts show where the county road ends.
This is the easy way to settle this peacefully.
I do not want a political/legal war, but am readying to fight the county in the courts if necessary.
Facts to consider:
1. The county commissioners have done wrong by not having true evidence to back your decision, but used presumption concerning the placement of the 1900 Alta post office, as well as the presumption of the route of the 1900 approved county roadway, then presumed the county road to go through our private lands. We have been challenging you on this lack of evidence all along but have been continually ignored.
2. You should know well that to try to establish a position without real evidence is misconduct and is illegal, punishable by fines, and possible jail time.
3. One commissioner in the recent hearing clearly stated that the county held a position in opposition of the landowners as early as in the first hearing. Is that evidence of a lack of good faith by the county, and a conflict of interest? We may soon find out!
4. Your use of the law to try to say that you have no choice to open this roadway is also in error, because without your own decision to deem our land a county roadway, clearly in opposition to facts, the law does not apply. What you are actually saying is that the law applies, because you commissioners say that it does. That is not good faith or honest in any way, not without evidence. Do you not see that?
5. The county’s short 10-day notice to us landowners before the first hearing was inadequate for the landowners to ready a defense.
6. The county’s prevention of the landowners, to access county records leading up to and after the second hearing, due to contaminated storage area, shows a good reason to rehear the evidence of which the landowners were prevented from gathering at that time. To refuse an appeal is evidence of a lack of good faith.
7. A judge in 1993 made judgment that the county did not have evidence to show that there was a county road through our lands. The commissioners have ignored this ruling completely.
8. The county cherry-picked evidence, many times incomplete and out of context, to prove their position. This is a violation of ethics and demonstrates a clear attempt to defraud. In the 9/18 hearing, just a week ago, the county attorney stated that one piece of evidence to demonstrate the county easement across my land is the 1982 commissioner decision, but he failed to recognize that this decision was overruled by a judge in 1993, and made void. Another attempt to defraud? Our attempts to argue against this have been ignored.
9. Statements by commissioners to demean the landowners by stating that we do not want to work with the county is a fraud. We have been peacefully trying to work this out, but there is no middle ground in this issue, either the gate remains or it is out. So stating that we landowners are not willing to cooperate or work with the county is not valid, because the county has not been willing to work with evidence, truth, or the landowners, not in any way.
There is much more that I could add to this list.
We do have all of the evidence to show clearly that every claim that I have made is true, factual and based on solid evidence.
Do you really want to go down the rabbit hole and see how deep you have dug yourself in, or do you want peaceful solution to this matter, once and for all? Your choice. We landowners are readying either way.
I offer you this publicly so as to show our good faith.
Do you have the same good faith?