Violations anger lake commitee

The chairman of the Whitefish Lake and

Lakeshore Protection Committee expressed outrage at a series of

lakeshore violations this fall in a letter to the Whitefish City

Council and requested guidance on how to proceed with similar cases

in the future.

Jim Stack described how a Kalispell

contractor violated regulations intended to protect water quality

in Whitefish Lake on several occasions while using an excavator to

install a water line at a property on the west side of the lake

north of Lion Mountain.

“What was most disconcerting to members

of the lakeshore committee was the fact that the contractor

proceeded with a second and subsequent third violation after being

notified by the Whitefish Planning Office to cease all work in the

lakeshore zone,” he said.

Stack has expressed concern in the past

that wealthy property owners along the lake are willing to pay

fines to get the kinds of development or shoreline changes they

want. But this case was different.

“My personal concern, as chairman, is

the attitude of the contractor at the lakeshore committee meeting

that the violations are not a problem if the end result complies

with regulations and the owner is willing to pay the after-the-fact

permit fee,” he said.

According to three letters city

planning director David Taylor sent property owners Ken and Pamela

Reaser, of Scottsdale, Ariz., their contractor, Paul Clark, began

work installing a water line across the 20-foot lakeshore

protection zone without a permit.

Heavy equipment was seen operating in

the lake itself as a trench was dug across the lakeshore protection

zone.

“Although the contractor was notified

and he stated he would stop construction until a permit was

obtained, the excavator continued to work the next day,” Taylor

wrote on Oct. 1.

Clark was given until Nov. 17 to apply

for after-the-fact permits. On Dec. 8, the lakeshore committee

reviewed Clark’s after-the-fact permit applications. Because the

waterline installation, removal, re-installation and placement of

gravel on the beach complied in the end with current lakeshore

regulations, the committee forwarded the applications to the city

council for their approval at their Jan. 3 meeting.

“The danger, or course, is the

precedent this may set — not only for this contractor, but for

other contractors as well,” Stack told the city council.

“Historically, we have found that raising the after-the-fact permit

fees or imposing the maximum $500 fine provides little deterrent to

a growing number of new lakeshore owners who have paid exorbitant

prices for their property. In the end, the only true deterrent is

either ‘restoration’ or ‘loss of use.’”

About five years ago, Stack told the

committee, the city council considered increasing the

after-the-fact permit by 10 times to discourage repeat offenders.

But the lakeshore committee had argued at the time against the

proposal in order to protect people who were truly innocent.

In the case of the Reaser violation,

the lakeshore committee tacked on a special condition to their

after-the-fact permit — “The contractor shall supply the name of

the sub-contracting excavator to the planning office, and the

committee requests that the city send a certified letter to both

the contractor and the excavator notifying them that if either is

found in violation again, they will be prosecuted by the city.”

Changed

perspective

Ron Hauf was the lakeshore committee

member who took photos of the excavator working on the Reasers’

water line installation. During the committee’s Dec. 8 meeting,

Hauf “expressed frustration with individuals who intentionally

violate the regulations, then deny that they are doing anything

wrong,” according to the minutes.

Hauf has been on the lakeshore

committee for three years, but he was not re-appointed by the

Flathead County Commissioners. Committee chairman Herb Peschel

noted that this was the first time a member who had re-applied had

not been re-appointed.

In what has been characterized as an

emotional comment, Hauf reacted to the commissioners’ decision to

appoint Dennis Konopatzke to his seat. He told the committee how he

was “originally convinced to get on the committee three years ago

by an anti-regulation group who continually attempt to undermine

the efforts of the committee,” according to the minutes.

Admitting that “in years back, he was

the ‘other guy’ creating problems on the lake,” Hauf explained that

over time he came to respect the work of the lakeshore committee

and that he now “cares more about the quality of the lake than his

own personal property, and will do whatever necessary to protect

it.”

Hauf went on to link Konopatzke to

political action committees involved in past city elections and to

Rick Blake, who maintained the Web site weloveourlake.com when the

lakeshore committee was drafting a rewrite of the lakeshore

regulations two years ago. Blake opposed the proposed changes.

Hauf, who grew up in Billings and

attended the University of Montana-Missoula, bought his property on

Whitefish Lake in 1986 and moved here full-time in 2005. His

property is nonconforming and he initially was sympathetic to

others who were concerned about the regulation rewrite, but he

voted for the new regulations because, he told the Pilot, in the

end they were “mostly more lenient.”

“They will never be perfect, they will

never make everyone happy,” he said.

His vote, he believes, led to his

“earmarking” by the ”anti-regulation” group that he claims

influenced the county commissioners’ decision to appoint Konopatzke

— “although I can’t prove it,” he added.

Hauf considers himself an

independent-minded person who believes in common sense, but he’s

also convinced water quality in Whitefish Lake is worsening.

“I’ve seen declines in the past 20

years,” he said. “Every year, there’s algae growing on my dock

floats — I’ve never seen that before.”

Hauf says he’s a strong supporter of

property rights, but protecting the water quality of the lake is

more important.

“If people need to build back away from

the lake, then that’s what should be done,” he said. “They can

paint their house pink with purple polka dots, as long as it meets

zoning regulations and doesn’t harm the quality of the water in the

lake.”

People are always trying to bend the

rules, he said, but “I’ve gotten older and wiser regarding

protection of the water quality of the lake.”

Hauf said serving on the lakeshore

committee is a “thankless job” and he had to be convinced to

re-apply. But with his good track record of attending 27 of the 31

lakeshore committee meetings in three years, and with the

commissioners recently deciding not to re-appoint Tim Grattan to

the airport board because he no longer lives full-time in the

Flathead, Hauf wanted to know why they chose Konopatzke, a member

of the Whitefish City-County Planning Board who has missed four of

their last 10 meetings and attended two by telephone.

Common

sense

Konopatzke is an attorney and local

businessman who owns the Great Northern Brewery and Woodtech

Trading, a door manufacturing company in Columbia Falls, and has a

home on Whitefish Lake. He told the Pilot he’s often on the road

conducting business in Dallas, Washington, D.C., and

California.

He began taking a more active role in

Whitefish politics during the 2007 city elections when he helped

form a political action group called Quality Whitefish. The group,

which still exists, does not support or oppose candidates but

instead organizes candidate forums.

Blake, a personal friend of

Konopatzke’s, decided that year to form his own one-man PAC, Common

Sense in Whitefish Government, so he could support candidates for

city council. Blake later sued in Flathead County District Court to

have John Muhlfeld, a long-time member of the lakeshore committee,

removed from the city council, claiming Muhlfeld was not a city

resident. A judge ruled against Blake, and Muhlfeld stayed on the

council.

Konopatzke told the Pilot he has a lot

of friends on the lake, but “it’s tough finding people willing to

serve on volunteer boards.” One of his goals is to see more

transparency on the lakeshore committee, but he didn’t know of any

current “hot button” issues that need to be addressed.

“I want to apply common sense,” he

said. “This is a small town.”

Konopatzke said government is sometimes

“overreaching” with its regulations, and property rights are

affected.

“What I always look at is what’s fair,

what is the end goal, what are we trying to accomplish,” he

said.

An example of overreaching to some

lakeshore committee critics would be the committee’s support at

their Dec. 8 meeting of a text amendment to the lakeshore

regulations allowing stone-facing on vertical concrete structures

in the lakeshore protection zone. Some people would argue that such

regulations have nothing to do with protecting water quality and

instead are all about lakeshore aesthetics.

In an e-mail to the lakeshore

committee, member Sharon Morrison, a Whitefish attorney, said she

would be unable to attend the meeting but that she opposed the text

amendment.

“As you know, I don’t believe that the

lakeshore regulations can legally prohibit anything outright,” she

explained.

A county appointee who has missed nine

of the committee’s last 21 meetings, Morrison said she supported

the staff report on the Reaser violation and would recommend

approval of it to the city council.