Truce is called in KEA lawsuit
SANDPOINT — The Kootenai Environmental Alliance and Bonner County officials have called a truce in a legal battle over public records connected to the county’s dimmed-out Property Rights Council.
Judge Barbara Buchanan dismissed the civil suit with prejudice on Aug. 21, according to 1st District Court records. The nature of the dismissal prevents the Coeur d’Alene-based conservation group from reviving its suit.
Both sides, which moved jointly for the dismissal, have to bear the cost of their respective attorney’s fees, court records show.
The Property Rights Council was formed in 2011 and was meant to advocate for landowners’ rights. It made non-binding recommendations to the county commission.
Although the council was welcomed by conservatives in Bonner County, opponents viewed it as an embarrassment that threatened to undermine land use planning and policies.
The legality of the council was questioned, but Idaho Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane held that the panel was lawfully created.
The council met a dozen times following its inception, but made only one recommendation to the county commission. The council recommended against the county’s adoption of a watershed overlay ordinance, which sought to protect surface water quality in Bonner County.
The county commission rejected the watershed ordinance last year, holding that there were already sufficient regulations to safeguard water quality.
The council has not met since June of 2012, county records show.
“It’s not disbanded,” Commissioner Mike Nielsen explaining that it can still be utilized on an as-needed basis.
The Kootenai Environmental Alliance requested correspondence between the county and DeWeese, who asserted in an online article that the council would serve as a “major new weapon” in combating the United Nations’ Agenda 21, a global blueprint for sustainable resource management and conservation.
Critics of Agenda 21 claim that it is a nefarious plot to undermine private property rights and restrict energy usage.
DeWeese’s article mentioned the council’s founder, former county Commission Chairman Cornel Rasor and Scott Bauer, the commission’s civil counsel. Bracken, a property rights advocate in Tennessee, was also mentioned in the article.
The alliance filed a public records request for email correspondence between Bauer and DeWeese and Bracken, but the county denied the request because those interactions were conducted through Bauer’s personal email account rather than his county account, court records indicate.