CALURS looks to make sure panel is made up of residents, not part-timers
A car drives down a road near West Glacier as Longfellow Peak and Paul Bunyan’s Cabin loom behind it in this file photo.
The Middle Canyon Land Use Advisory Committee is working on revising its bylaws. The committee is a citizens review panel for the Middle Canyon area, which includes development in and near West Glacier.
Perhaps the most notable bylaw change concerns who is eligible to sit on the panel. Under the proposed changes, a “resident” is someone who lives in the Middle Canyon area at least eight months of the year, pays Flathead County property tax, or has rented long term for two years or more and files Montana state income tax returns.
In other words, a person or property owner who lives, for example, in West Glacier, but only in the summer months, would be ineligible to sit on the board.
Another change concerns attendance of meetings.
Under the proposed changes “Any committee member who misses four scheduled committee meetings within a calendar year shall be recommended for dismissal from the Committee by a majority vote. Such action shall be reflected in the meeting minutes.”
Another section has been added pertaining to gifts.
Under the proposed changes, a panel members shall not “accept a gift of any value or any economic benefit,” related to the carrying out of specific business of the committee.
The previous bylaws said the gift had to have “substantial value” or “substantial economic benefit tantamount to a gift.”
The proposed bylaw changes also strike out a requirement that committee meetings be placed in the legal ads of the county newspapers and that public service announcements be sent to newspapers. Instead, it requires that they be posted on the county’s planning web site, instead.
The role of the committee is to provide recommendations to the planning and zoning office, planning board, board of adjustment and the county commission. It has three members that serve of staggered terms. The county commissioners have the final say in most planning decisions.
Board member Gary Kauffman objected to the proposed changes, claiming some of the provisions could be challenged in court for discriminatory reasons. For example, he noted that a person with low income might not pay Montana state income tax, but could still be a renter or landowner. He also thought the bylaws should allow a person who couldn’t make a meeting to be allowed to attend via the Internet.
A copy of the draft changes is on the county’s planning website at: https://flathead.mt.gov/planning_zoning/documents/RevisedMiddleCanyonbylaws2018.pdf