Power Politics or Reigning in Government?

Growing Pains and the Effort to Unseat a Park County Commissioner

By David Nolt, 11-29-07

	Park County Commissioner Larry Lahren

Not long ago, Tim Watson led a successful petition campaign to suspend Park County’s first growth policy and put it to an up-or-down vote in 2008. Now, Watson is leading another petition, this time to unseat Commissioner Larry Lahren.

In the accepted petition proposal, Watson and attorney Mark Hartwig accuse Lahren of admittedly failing to keep commission minutes and failing to provide notice of commission meetings. Lahren says his commission was working to correct inherited problems and he attributes the petition to “power politics” and outstanding grudges over issues involving the growth policy and county refuse.

Though Watson insists the recall petition is unrelated, it is hard to ignore the overarching and contentious issue of balancing zoning and planning with private property rights in this rapidly growing rural county.

Such a confrontation is not the only one occurring in similar Western counties.

In 2004 a group in Flathead County attempted to recall the entire Flathead County Commission and derail the county’s land use plan. More recently, Teton County, Idaho went through a similar scrap as a private-property rights group sought to recall two commissioners. The commissioners easily survived a heated special election that saw record voter turnout, but it also cost taxpayers about $13,000, according to Teton County Clerk Mary Lou Hansen.

The group, Teton Valley Alliance, filed the petitions in the wake of a county-mandated emergency moratorium on development applications, though a district judge soon overturned the moratorium. The group also alleged the commissioners violated open-meeting laws, which brings to mind another Greater Yellowstone county.

On November 19th, 2007, Park County Clerk and Recorder Denise Nelson accepted Watson’s and Hartwig’s third draft petition proposal, which came on the heels of a draft denied due to form and a draft denied due to the lack of a “general statement for reasons of recall.”

Commissioner Larry Lahren – who has been a Park County Commissioner since 2005 – dismisses the charges.

“All these accusations were preexisting problems that we were working on correcting,” Lahren explains. “Overall, it is a grudge by a small group against the county.”

Lahren says the group’s “paranoia about government” dates back to the removal of the Park County refuse incinerator and issues involving the growth policy. The mere mention of either issue still raises the hackles of some residents here, but petitioner Tim Watson says the recall against Lahren is unrelated and involves a “different group of people.”

“Quite honestly,” Watson says, “11 months ago I started to have people come to me…to recall Larry Lahren.”

Watson – now a city resident – admits people came to him because of his work on the county growth policy, but he says public support for Lahren’s removal far outnumbered the growth policy’s opponents.

“Conservatively, for every one person I had talk to me about the growth policy, I’ve had six or seven talk to me about the recall. It’s not a special interest group.”

Lahren emphasizes he ran on a “fair-shake, individual, non-partisan, non-factualized” campaign, and he calls Watson’s efforts a “knee-jerk reaction.”

“It is fear of change and a fear that the change won’t directly benefit you,” Lahren contends. “It’s old-fashioned power politics.”

Watson admits to creating some of the unfortunate “atmosphere of discontent,” but he says Lahren brought it upon himself.

“We shouldn’t have the tension,” Watson says. “We shouldn’t have the loggerheads, but if he’d have done things right he wouldn’t be in this situation…If requiring local government to follow state code and the Montana Constitution is special interest, then I guess it is.”

Watson and Hartwig have until mid-February 2007 to collect enough signatures – roughly 1,700, including 15 percent from Lahren’s district. Lahren is expected to challenge the petition, but if the petition stands and Lahren complies, the other two commissioners will appoint a replacement. If the petition stands and Lahren refuses to resign, the county will have to hold a special election, which County Clerk & Recorder Denise Nelson estimates would cost the county around $20,000 plus the county attorney fees and reimbursement for Watson’s attorney fees.

Watson insists the petition is not personal and says the end of “running the government the way it’s supposed to be run” justifies the means.

When asked if the conflict is personal, Lahren shrugs his shoulders confusedly and says, “Tim’s grandfather was one of my best friends.”

Either way, any outcome of the recall petition is likely to be costly and potentially embarrassing to the county, according to Lahren.

“I don’t see anything positive coming out of this,” Lahren says. “I just see more divisiveness and more conflict and polarization.”

Jane Jelinski is a former Gallatin County Commissioner and she is currently the director of the Local Government Center – a “Dear Abby for governments.” She sees the petitions in Park County as part of a larger phenomenon in the West, and she is troubled by it.

“The quality of public discourse in the state has gone downhill,” Jelinksi says. “The problem is, people are going to be less inclined to run for public office because of the strident tone of disagreement.”

Jelinksi attributes part of the problem to “extreme land use pressure” and says Western counties are having to perform tricky balancing acts between planning communities’ futures while protecting private property rights.

For citizens and county officials in Park County, this is not news.

Now, both the fate of the suspended Park County Growth Policy and the last few months of Commissioner Larry Lahren’s term hang in the balance until 2008. In a sense, so too hangs much of the balance of planning and government in Park County.

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