Local ‘shelter’ still in hot water with county

by Michael Howell

The Ravalli County Board of Health has been embroiled in contentious issues with Pastor Harris Himes and his companies Holy Ground and the Big Sky Christian Center over subdivision and septic issues for about three years now. The Health Board first responded in February of 2023 to complaints about the number of people living in RVs parked at the facility which raised questions about a potential violation of the state’s subdivision laws and potential wastewater disposal issues at the property located on Bowman Road in Hamilton.

Harris met with the County Commissioners to discuss the problems, defending his use of the facility as a homeless shelter and denying any violations of the law. At the June 2023 meeting, Himes claimed that he was in compliance and had always been in compliance based on historical use. There are four buildings on the property and a number of septic tanks and drain fields. He said his septic system serving the shelter building had historically served up to 120 people daily with no problems. He said there were 52 bunk beds in the shelter, allowing for 104 people. He said that 40 to 60 people used the restaurant facility daily and with women and children upstairs, it was a total of another 100 additional. That would be a total use of 202 people daily.

He said currently there were about 51 people total using the facility, including the people in the RVs. He said all but three of the RVs were using the facilities inside the shelter building. 

“So, historically that’s the range we operated at and the range we should be considering now,” he said. “I submit that we would be good for 70 more people in RVs without overburdening the present system.”

“The more people I can handle the fewer people the county needs to handle,” he said. He called it “cruel and unusual punishment” to “criminalize homelessness.”

The problem for the Board of Health was the lack of documentation concerning the septic systems being claimed and the question of their current condition. Ravalli County Environmental Health Director John Palacio said the Board needed additional documentation about the historical use and some evidence about the existing systems and their capacity. He said the current documentation for the shelter building was only for a capacity of 520 gallons per day and that it is estimated that a single person uses up to 50 gallons per day. 

“We need to know what is really there,” said Board member Skip Chisholm. He said he wasn’t doubting Himes’ claims but that some verified documentation needed to be produced.

Unable to reach complete agreement over the issues, the parties did agree that the status quo could be maintained while the issues were being hashed out and a motion was passed in June 2023 setting a limit of 33 people at the shelter and eight RVs. 

In the meantime, the County Commissioners decided to bring the issue of whether the arrangement constituted an unpermitted RV park to the state Department of Environmental Quality. It took DEQ almost a year to respond to the complaint but a reply was finally sent to Himes on June 11, 2024, in which the department informed Himes that they did not find any evidence that there was a campground open to the public. They found no advertising, no presence on the internet, or social media, and no signage of any type indicating a person could come in and rent a space for camping. They did not consider requiring donations from the people to be a rental agreement.

“Since this facility is not open to the public for rent or lease,” wrote DEQ, “it does not require review under the Sanitation in Subdivisions Act, and I am dismissing this complaint.”

At the Health Board’s August meeting, Palacio told the Board that a letter was sent to Himes informing him that the county needed to obtain the information required to determine whether he was in compliance with county regulations or not. Himes replied on July 29, asking what the legal basis for their request was. Palacio said he discussed it with the county attorney’s office and a letter was sent to Himes citing state law and the county’s wastewater disposal regulations and they were waiting on a reply.

Himes replied in a 20-page epistle accusing the Board of Health of running rough-shod over his ministry and bullying him. He said the Board’s actions “portray what I view as a determined and relentless pattern of antagonism and discrimination against our ministry which has attempted to severely burden it and has actually – and arbitrarily – restricted our right to freedom of religious expression in helping the homeless and others in need.”

He claimed that “any effort to restrict the numbers of people we can help below those numbers will be considered by us to be a potentially unreasonable infringement upon our freedom of religious expression and an unnecessary burden upon our ministry.”

At the time Himes claimed that DEQ’s examination of the shelter over the potential violation of the State Subdivision and Platting Act also included an examination of the wastewater system that exonerated them from any violation of the county’s wastewater regulations. Both DEQ and the County deny that this is the case, claiming that the potential violation of the Subdivision and Platting Act was under DEQ’s jurisdiction but that potential violations of the county’s Wastewater Regulations are a separate issue and under the jurisdiction of the county.

Harris interpreted the county’s insistence on seeking information about his septic systems as an attack upon the church. 

“To paraphrase David when he faced Goliath,” wrote Himes, “‘You come to me with manipulated law, with deceit, with assault upon our religious freedoms, and with a suspect agenda. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts whom you have defied.’ (cf. 1 Samuel 17:45).”

He also submitted a list of demands to the County that any testing or evaluation of his septic systems be at the County’s expense and that any results be inadmissible in any legal hearing and that Ravalli County agree it “will neither initiate nor participate in any proceedings related to this matter” and “no charges or fines or litigation of any kind will be brought against Holy Ground, Big Sky Christian Center, or me, or anyone else involved in these matters.” 

These demands were followed by further quotes from the Bible including, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. (Acts 4:18:-20).”

Deputy County Attorney Christine Lindley said at the time that she considered the letter a “non-response” to the questions being asked of Mr. Himes and suggested the Board might write another letter requesting the information.

At the September 2024 Board of Health meeting, it was decided to send a letter informing Himes that the addition of the RVs, which are considered “occupied buildings” in the county regulations, and their use of the shelter facility constituted a change of use in the existing permit for the shelter facility and requires an evaluation of the facility’s system to determine the capacity of the shelter’s system in order to determine if the change is allowable. Without the information to make that determination the County would have to issue an order to cease and desist the new use. The cost of producing that information would come at the applicant’s expense, since he is the one seeking the change.

Himes responded to the County’s continued demand for information concerning his septic systems’ condition and capacity in a 25-page document on January 2, 2025 in which he rehashed the history of their dispute including a long and detailed account of DEQ’s dismissal letter which he still interprets as an exoneration from the County’s demands for information on his septic systems. Instead he claims that the County is attacking him personally.

“You don’t like me and my attitude. There is evidence of this. I don’t kowtow. The nerve. You think, ‘This convicted felon. Thinks he’s a pastor and a lawyer and can do whatever he wants,’” wrote Himes. He also claims religious persecution, writing, “Perhaps some of you on the health board don’t like Christian churches- or Christians. In the meeting agendas over the last year-and-a-half or so, we are listed as ‘Big Sky Church’- not ‘Big Sky Christian Center- when you were made aware of our true name from the very first.”

He criticizes the County for always referring to “the Property” with no reference to his ministry for the homeless. 

“I’m not so sure that your November 25, 2024 letter isn’t a charade. Did you really expect all those requirements to be met in a month (approximately) – much less during the Thanksgiving holidays and before Christmas and January 1?” he wrote.

He takes it as an admission of guilt on the County’s part for not responding to his own previous list of demands. “As I said earlier, it’s as if you disdain us. We are beneath you. We are insignificant. You have now compounded an obviously cavalier disregard for my efforts to resolve this matter both amicably and expeditiously by making further demands.”

Himes then lists 33 instances which he claims show a pattern of persecution, misapplication of the law and lack of any factual evidence for the County’s claims. He follows this with a list of his own demands for information very similar to the demands he made in his previous letter.

In a second letter sent on the same day, January 2, 2025, Himes  once again accuses the County of persecution and discrimination and states that if they don’t meet the demands he is making in the first letter that they provide him with records demonstrating that they have not discriminated against him and the Big Sky Christian Center including records of all those cases involving “similarly situated parties” in which “you and the Board of Health have dealt with involving consideration of the County’s Wastewater Regulations since July 1, 2021.”

“I would imagine there to be several hundred cases,” he wrote. He also seeks “all those cases you and the health board have dealt with involving the Sanitation and Subdivision Act. Here, I would expect many more cases than in the first group, since the sanitation in subdivision laws have been around a lot longer than 2021,” he wrote. He lists several types of cases he is looking for to prove that the County is not discriminating against him.

“If there is no response, or there is an objection or similar response made, or any legal action taken, or an evasive answer is given, then this will be a non-response, the consequence being that you have admitted that you have no cases to demonstrate that you have not discriminated against our ministry,” he wrote.

The Board of Health, on its part, considers the last two letters from Himes to be a “non-response” to their demands for information that was due by January 2, 2025, and on January 8 sent him a letter of violation reiterating those demands which include providing water flow meter data for the north end of the shelter building to be used to help measure the wastewater flow into the existing system that serves that portion of the building; providing soil profile within 25 feet of the existing drainfield/seepage pit that serves that portion of the building; providing a copy of the pumper’s report from when the existing septic tanks for that portion of the building were pumped; providing proof of the number and length of the laterals if the absorption system serving that portion of the building is a drainfield; and if any of the RVs used as Occupied Buildings on the property are holding black or gray water, provide pumper’s reports to show that the RVs are getting pumped or taken to an approved dump site.

According to the County’s Wastewater Regulations, when a new or change of use on a commercial or residential building is proposed, the existing wastewater system serving that building must be evaluated to determine whether the existing system is large enough to meet DEQ’s requirements. 

“To be clear,” the letter from the Board of Health states, “the shelter building has previously been used as a restaurant and shelter that houses 28 residents. The addition of RV residents utilizing the building for laundry, bathroom and kitchen facilities is a change in use since the systems connected to the shelter building did not previously serve other residents of the RVs for laundry, bathroom and kitchen facilities.”

The letter notes that any use of occupied RVs on the property without an approved means of wastewater disposal is in violation of the County Regulations and Montana Code and corrective action should be taken by February 21, 2025 or the matter will be forwarded to the County Attorney’s office for a Compliance Order to be issued.

Himes was invited to attend the February 12 meeting of the Board of Health to discuss the issues, but he did not attend. The Notice of Violation became effective February 16, and a Compliance Order will most likely be issued.