Confusion highlights subdivision notice

SANDPOINT — Confusion regarding a property subdivision made its way to the Bonner County commissioners’ Tuesday regular meeting.

Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler referenced a notice he said was placed at the edge of the county jail property roughly a week ago announcing a public hearing for the city of Sandpoint’s Planning and Zoning Commission for the topic of three parcels of land surrounding the property being subdivided. Two of the parcels — which Wheeler said were for the fairgrounds and the readiness center — were allegedly being combined — although that is not stated in the public hearing notice.

Wheeler said he was unaware that subdivisions of the lots had been approved and no county staff he spoke to had knowledge of the situation either. 

“If that’s the case, without a meeting and approval, that’s a violation of open meeting,” Wheeler said.

Commissioner Luke Omodt said he had the approved contract in his hand and was ready to clear up any confusion on the matter. However, Wheeler said the contract was for rezoning of the parcels, not the subdivision of them.

Commissioner Asia Williams said her issue with the situation is that she only remembers discussing a boundary line adjustment. When she looked for a prior agenda item about the pieces of property, she was unable to find any.

“For me, the question was, did we give approval for a boundary line adjustment, which was the set cost of $25,000, and has the project grown without doing it in open meeting?” she asked.

Williams pointed out that while the boundary line adjustments were being discussed, the county was dealing with other highly contentious topics and it was possible the agenda item could have gotten lost in the mix, and was hoping either other commissioner could point out when the discussion on subdivision was had.

“My question was, during those discussions, there was never the word subdivision mentioned in any of those,” Wheeler said. “If that was part of the project, that J. Sewell was going to do boundary line adjustments and they were going to create a subdivision, then I’d like to have that clarification.”

Commissioner Steve Bradshaw said he does not remember the term “subdivision” ever being used in the discussions regarding the properties, but he does remember approving the other work on the lots.

“[James A. Sewell and Associates LLC] may have called it a subdivision, I don’t know,” he said. “I think that was just him completing what he was hired to do in the original contract.”

Wheeler said he recalls the discussion during a prior city Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, where commissioners said “all this does is it changes the zoning of the property; it doesn’t change anything else.” If the board of commissioners wanted anything else done with the property, the sheriff said, they would have had to come back before the commission another time for the new project.

“I’d like to ask … is this a separate proposal?” he asked. “Is this a violation of open meeting law?”

Williams also said that the situation could be a big misunderstanding, as “those days were rough” when the topic was under consideration.

She made a motion that — until the board could prove the decision was made appropriately — asking the city to table the hearing “pending confirmation from Bonner County Prosecutor’s Office that the application was submitted in accordance with the rules that govern.”

However, the motion was not seconded by the other commissioners and the motion died. After the motion was not seconded, Omodt continued the conversation, saying he was able to talk to one of the engineers on the project to get more information on the situation.

“It is indeed fortunate that I have reached out to the city of Sandpoint verifying that this is the completion of that project,” he said.

The engineer, who Omodt said has been working on the project since it began, confirmed that “subdivision” is a technical term and that this public hearing is part of the completion of the original contract.

Additionally, Omodt said that the county is expected to come in under budget on the project.

Williams then asked Deputy Prosecutor Bill Wilson if it would be reasonable to revote on the subdivision part of the project, as that’s not what was originally understood. However, Wilson said he was not prepared to give legal advice on the situation.

Bradshaw also added his thoughts, saying he believes some of the confusion might come from a varying definition of the term “subdivision” between the Bonner County Planning Department and the city of Sandpoint’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

“They may or may not have a definition of lot line adjustment,” he said. “They may call that a subdivision. That would just be a guess.”

Later that night, the Planning and Zoning Commission voted to recommend that the Sandpoint City Council approve the county’s request to subdivide the three parcels.