By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

DALTON GARDENS — A dispute over a proposed Dalton Gardens subdivision has worked itself into a potential lawsuit against the city, and a petition to recall the elected officials at Dalton City Hall.

Jeffery Crandall, a Dalton Gardens attorney, is among the voices behind a movement to shed light on, he says, a city council he accuses of making a backroom land development deal with one family, which flies in the face of city’s laws.

“They have kept this deal under the radar entirely,” Crandall said. “That has been their MO from the beginning.”

Crandall and Dalton Gardens residents belonging to a Facebook group called Save Dalton Gardens have had enough, they said, of a council they say prefers to fight against its constituents instead of enforcing its own rules.

“They are going to end up in litigation against the residents of Dalton Gardens, who are requiring them to enforce the ordinances of the city,” Crandall said.

In front of a standing-room only crowd at a Dalton Gardens City Council meeting last month, Crandall presented a case — in the 15 minutes he was allotted — to show that the city council acted illegally when it cut a deal to allow a four-home development on a 5-acre meadow at 7079 N. 16th St.

City code prohibits home building without public street frontage, and the development requires a private road be built into the field to reach at least two of the lots, clearly an ordinance violation, said Crandall, who sees the deal as setting a precedent that will allow other property owners to build cul-de-sacs into hayfields to develop them as real estate.

“This really does open the floodgates,” Crandall said.

But Dalton Gardens Mayor Steve Roberge said the property deal with the Streeters, a family whose parents owned the land, subdivided it 40 years ago — albeit without filing a timely plat— is legal.

In addition, Roberge said the resulting subdivision was part of a court-encouraged mediation.

“Our legal counsel and advisors said … it was totally within our scope to be able to make that decision,” Roberge said. “People can have disagreements … we discussed it at the meeting in front of everybody.”

Entering into an agreement with the Streeters was a tough decision, Roberge said.

The decision came as a result of a lawsuit filed against the city by Jerry D., Jimmy and Terry Streeter after the city initially denied the subdivision request.

Roberge said the city opted to compromise with the Streeters, to save the city money it would otherwise have spent fighting the lawsuit.

It had already spent $30,000 on the initial suit.

Crandall, however, said even a compromise must fall within legal parameters, and the city’s compromise violates its ordinances.

Crandall said the city proffered the resolution behind closed doors at a meeting earlier this summer without the presence of the public, and it did not publicize its decision until many days later.

Roberge countered that the special meeting to discuss the compromise was announced six days in advance by posting a notice on the door of City Hall, and via a post on the city’s website two days prior to the meeting.

Roberge has heard of the petition seeking his and the council’s recall, but has not seen any action in that direction. He said he stands behind the council’s decision.

“They have the best interest of the city in mind,” he said.

City Council member Denise Lundy, a local real estate agent, would not answer questions Thursday regarding the council’s decision to allow the Streeter subdivision that Crandall, and Save Dalton Gardens members Peggy Leonard and Mark Cook see as an affront.

The group plans fundraisers next month at city park to support their own litigation against the city, as well as with a recall petition.

“We don’t develop back-acre, landlocked lots here,” Cook said. “Everybody knows that, and now it’s happening,”

Leonard said the concern for the integrity of Dalton Gardens is widespread.

“This affects all residents of Dalton, which is why we’re taking this on,” she said.