A settlement has been reached in the lawsuit filed by the Montana Department of Corrections against the Flathead County Board of Adjustment, which voted unanimously to deny the request to convert the Greenwood Village Inn & Suites into a pre-release center.
The Board of Adjustment plans a public hearing on the settlement Tuesday night. The Board has scheduled a vote on the settlement the following Tuesday, April 1st.
Corrections Department attorneys, Charity Yonker and Andreas Haladay, say the Board, “engaged in irrelevant discussions, speculated in the absence of fact, and made a pretextual determination to deny” their application. The Department of Corrections is asking Flathead District Judge Amy Eddy to reverse the Board’s decision.
The settlement agreement requires two conditions be met. One, that vehicles associated with the center use the northwest road, away from the neighborhood. The other requires notice to the County when an offender is placed into the center.
The Department of Corrections tells us Flathead County accounts for a little less than 15% of the inmate population at their Deer Lodge facility. DOC has $7.1-million available to develop a pre-release center in Kalispell.
Prior to the Board of Adjustment’s denial of the application, the County Commissioners had approved the plan, with Commissioners Brodehl and Brad Abell in favor. Commissioner Pam Holmquist voted no, siding with the concerns of the neighbors.
