Flathead County officials say they are checking into allegations that the Bigfork Stormwater Advisory Committee violated the state open-meeting law on several occasions.

Bill Myers, representing Bayside Park and Marine Center, a limited liability corporation that owns seven acres of shoreline property on Bigfork Bay, recently met with the county commissioners to call for an investigation by the county.

In addition to open-meeting concerns, Myers has questions about a second engineering study that was done for the stormwater project and is concerned that stormwater systems installed at the Bigfork school complex in 2008 and 2009 may be causing surface flooding or seeps on his property near the public dock.

“I have no desire to embarrass Flathead County statewide,” Myers told the commissioners, adding that he won’t file a complaint with the state if the county “can clean up the mess.”

Myers wants the stormwater committee disbanded, and warned that “if you leave the group in place, you’ll force me to call Helena.”

Myers maintains a quorum of the stormwater committee members continued to meet and discuss committee business after meetings were adjourned in December and January. He also alleged meeting dates often are changed without proper notice.

“I’m the biggest property owner in the district and I’ve been consistently and deliberately left out of this group,” Myers said during an interview with the Daily Inter Lake.

At the Dec. 15 committee meeting, he said, county grant writer Debbie Pierson brought out spreadsheets related to the group’s finances after the meeting was over.

Pierson said she did give committee chairwoman Sue Hanson a copy of the committee’s financial report after the meeting, but said it’s a public document that anyone can access. It gives an accounting of the various grant funds for the Bigfork stormwater project.

County Administrative Officer Mike Pence said he’s not aware of any decisions that were made outside the committee meetings. If there’s enough evidence that something was mishandled, the county would take action, he said, but couldn’t say what action might be taken. It depends on the severity of any misconduct found, Pence said.

“There probably is some general discussion after meetings,” Pence said. “They [committee members] don’t usually put duct tape over their mouths after they adjourn.”

Deputy County Attorney Tara Fugina said she could gather information related to the allegations if directed by the commissioners to do so. The commissioners will decide whether they want to put the matter on the agenda and if that happens they would discuss how to proceed.

Hanson said what Myers is alleging “didn’t happen” and she is unaware of any violations by the committee. She said meeting dates and times are posted on the county’s website and also are sent to people on an e-mail notification list.

Bigfork businessman and former state senator Bob Keenan, who was present when Myers addressed the commissioners, said afterwards that he happened upon an illegal Bigfork Land Use Advisory Committee meeting at Eagle Bend about a year and a half ago, when a quorum of the committee was holding an unadvertised meeting with Jeff Harris who at the time was county planning director.

Keenan said he contacted the commissioners and the county attorney eventually wrote a letter of reprimand to the committee.

MYERS also is concerned about why two separate engineering studies were done for the stormwater project. He believes a 2008 study by Morrison-Maierle Inc. was “basically shelved” because it didn’t offer the recommendations for stormwater improvements that the committee wanted.

That study did, however, address flooding, while a 48 North Civil Engineering Services study done in 2009 doesn’t address flooding, Myers said.

Hanson said Morrison-Maierle’s study was a preliminary report, “and it was just that — preliminary.” She maintained the 48 North study was necessary to address changes as a result of stormwater work done at Bigfork schools to reduce stormwater flows. That work was done in 2008 and 2009 after the preliminary report had been completed, and it changed the volume of stormwater making its way to Grand Drive.

The preliminary report also didn’t address the area at the sound end of Bridge Street, Hanson said.

Keenan, who also owns property on the north end of Flathead Lake, said he, too, has concerns about the stormwater studies. His property wasn’t included on a map, and in another instance a photo of a stormwater discharge pipe was misidentified as being 150 yards away from where it really was.

“I’ve kept my eye on them,” Keenan said about the stormwater project. “His [Myers’] issues are real and he’s well researched. He’s on the right side of the issue.”

COUNTY Commissioner Pam Holmquist said she has talked to Myers about the allegations and plans to start attending meetings of not only the stormwater committee but also the Bigfork Steering Committee and Bigfork Land Use Advisory Committee.

While she’s not a member of those committees per se, Holmquist said it’s “something we should be involved with.”

Construction of the first phase of the stormwater project is scheduled to begin this week on Grand Drive, Hanson said. There is some old stormwater infrastructure in place, but it’s 60 years old and is substandard and undersized, she added.

The project was postponed last fall after Myers protested. The state Department of Commerce, which oversees Treasure State Endowment Program funds, found the protest to be without merit, Hanson said in a letter sent to Bigfork business owners late last year.

The state noted that “the construction of the project will not result in any impacts to groundwater in the project area...the project design does not include infiltration beds in any location [and] includes the installation of treatment devices that do not discharge to groundwater.”

But Myers’ engineer, Jeff Larsen, said in a letter written to the commissioners in December 2009 that he is concerned about the storm drain design and the impact it could have on Myers’ property.

Myers continues to assert that standing water and continuous puddling of water on his property are somehow related to the systems installed at the schools.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.