By Duane Egan, with remarks by Otis
Written public comment to the Flathead County Board of Commissioners, meeting of October 6, 2026. Submitted pursuant to 2-3-103, MCA, with the request that it be incorporated into the official minutes of this meeting. The full text will also be published at InvestedInMontana.com.
Introduction
In 1989, Flathead County adopted a law promising its residents that junk, debris, and decay along its public roads would not be allowed to stand. In 2021, a resident took the county at its word and filed a complaint. Five years later the junk is still standing, the complaint is still open, and the offices responsible for enforcing that law have offered him and his neighbors everything except enforcement. This chapter tells how it began.
The Facts
The law. Ordinance No. 6, Control of Community Decay, was adopted August 9, 1989, under 7-5-2111, MCA. Section 6 sets out a complete abatement procedure. The Zoning Administrator “shall be responsible for initiating abatement proceedings” (§6(a)). On receiving a complaint, he “shall inspect” the property (§6(b)). If he finds a violation, he “shall notify the owner … by certified mail and order its abatement within thirty (30) days,” warning that the county may abate and assess the cost (§6(c)). If the owner fails to comply, the Zoning Administrator may enter the property, abate or shield the violation, and assess the costs, which become a lien collected like unpaid property taxes (§6(f)). The County Attorney is not mentioned anywhere in Section 6. The prosecutor’s role arises only under Section 5, which makes a violation a misdemeanor. That section punishes an owner; it does not clean up a property.
The county’s promise. The county’s own public guide, “Community Decay,” posted on the county website, tells residents: “Our county agencies are tasked with the enforcement of county regulations at all levels.”
The complaint. On July 7, 2021, a resident submitted the county’s Violation Complaint Form by email. It described two adjacent commercial properties on U.S. Highway 2 West near Columbia Falls, with junk trucks, trailers, and abandoned double-wide homes sitting idle beside the highway. That complaint was eventually sent to the County Attorney’s Office; the case was later closed by Planning & Zoning and dismissed in Justice Court, and nothing was abated. When conditions did not change, he filed again, in person, on February 20, 2024, under Ordinance No. 6, also citing 75-10-501, MCA (junk vehicles). The renewed complaint was co-signed by neighboring property and business owners, three of whom still own property or operate businesses beside it today. Both filings are recorded under county file number FCD-21-26.[1]
Where it went. According to the county’s Code Compliance Technician, the complaint was delivered to the County Attorney’s Office on October 16, 2024, for further legal action. In January 2025, when the resident asked the County Attorney’s Office for the status of his complaint, he was told it would not provide status information and was referred back to Planning & Zoning.
The Board. In January 2025, the resident delivered to the Commissioners’ office a written statement dated January 28, 2025, addressed to all three Commissioners (Pamela Holmquist, Brad Abell, and Randy Brodehl). It described the problems he had encountered and requested a hearing or consultation within 30 days. The resident received no response.
The county’s own record. The county’s violation database, provided by the Planning & Zoning office on request in April 2026, lists FCD-21-26 with the status “Sent to Flathead County Attorney,” no resolution date, and no closing date. It is not alone. Other Community Decay complaints carry the same status and remained open cases as of June 2026.
One of them is file FCD-23-23, a Community Decay complaint filed in May 2023, alleging multiple vehicles in disrepair and not running, garbage, and general decay. The complainant listed is Brad Abell, then and now a County Commissioner, with the courthouse address, 800 S. Main, a county office telephone number, and his county email address. Its status is “Sent to Flathead County Attorney.” It has no resolution date and no closing date. The resident visited the site on July 16, 2026 and, from the public road, saw no evidence of abatement.
When the resident’s January 2025 request for a hearing on how the county handles these complaints was delivered to the Commissioners’ office, Commissioner Abell’s own complaint had been waiting for twenty months.
Who answers. On May 24, 2026, the resident emailed County Administrator Pete Melnick, with all three Commissioners copied, asking for a scheduled opportunity to discuss a policy question with the Commissioners at one of their public meetings. The reply came two days later from the Planning & Zoning Director, who wrote that the Commissioners’ Office had forwarded the questions to him. He stated that the county’s Enforcement Policy allows Planning & Zoning to refer violations to the County Attorney for criminal prosecution.
The “referral.” Planning & Zoning’s transmittal letters to the County Attorney open with the sentence “The following on-going violation is being forwarded to your office.” They recount each case’s history. The letters the resident reviewed contain no request for prosecution, a court order, or any other specific action. On June 8, 2026, the resident asked the Director for the section and paragraph that authorize these referrals, and asked what the letters ask the County Attorney to do. On June 16, the Director answered that the enforcement provisions of “the Flathead County zoning regulations” authorize referral, without citing a section or paragraph, and wrote that the transmittals “constitute referral of the case for legal action.” He added that Planning & Zoning “cannot compel the County Attorney to take a specific action or to proceed on a set timeline,” and that FCD-21-26 “remains with the County Attorney’s Office.” The County Administrator was copied on that reply.
The Board’s power. State law gives the Board of County Commissioners the jurisdiction and power to “supervise the official conduct of all county officers,” to “see that the officers faithfully perform their duties,” and to “direct prosecutions for delinquencies” (7-4-2110(1)(a)–(c), MCA (2025)). The Planning Director’s job description states that he “shall be directly responsible to the County Administrator and the County Commissioners for all matters carried on by” the Planning & Zoning office. The resident has found no record that the Board has used these powers in FCD-21-26 or the other open cases.
Beyond the courthouse. The resident has since taken the matter to the Montana Attorney General and the Department of Justice’s Prosecution Services Bureau, has filed a complaint of official misconduct under 45-7-401, MCA, with the County Attorney, and has asked the Legislative Audit Division for an audit.
Otis’s Remarks
Otis has now read Ordinance No. 6 several times, which may make him its most attentive reader since 1989.
It is a remarkably complete little law. It tells the county who is responsible, what he shall do, what he shall mail, how long to wait, and what comes next if the owner shrugs: the county may go in, clean up, and send the bill, with the property itself as security. It is a law that does not wait on a prosecutor.
Yet Flathead County has found a step the ordinance forgot to mention: send the file to the County Attorney, and wait. The ordinance does not mention the County Attorney at all. Perhaps that is why the files so seldom come back.
Otis does not suggest that anyone in the courthouse is lazy. Laziness would be simpler to cure. What the record shows is something more polished: letters received and not answered, files sent and not returned, questions acknowledged as questions and left at that. The resident has a name for it: Management by Avoidance. It is the practice of sending documents to other departments without clear instructions for action, denying custody of documents, and claiming that action is pending when it is not. The common word for it is “stonewalling,” and it is meant to stifle or delay further action. It is not simply a failure to act. It is the careful art of never quite being the office responsible for acting.
Consider how the circle closes. Planning & Zoning sends the file to the County Attorney and says it cannot make him act. The County Attorney does not answer. The Commissioners, asked to discuss the matter, send the questions back to Planning & Zoning. Everyone points to someone else, and the junk stays where it is. Otis has seen better coordination in a game of musical chairs, though in fairness, that game eventually ends.
As for the “referral,” the Director now says his Transmittal Letters are a referral “for legal action.” Otis is happy to take him at his word. A referral for legal action is a request that someone take legal action. The trouble is that the letters make no such request; they say only that the violation “is being forwarded.” The resident asked twice for the rule that authorizes them and has yet to see it. A referral that asks for nothing is not a referral. It is a way to make a question go away.
In fairness, the copy of the ordinance the county publishes for its residents does contain an error. Section 6(f) refers to “Section 69(c),” and there is no Section 69. Otis mentions this only as evidence that no one has read it closely in some time, which, on reflection, explains a good deal.
Otis would like to offer the Board some reassurance. The resident is not alone. In May 2023, Brad Abell, a Commissioner of this very county, filed a community decay complaint listing his courthouse office as the originating address, and it went precisely where the resident’s did: to the County Attorney, and no further. It is comforting, in its way, to learn that the county treats its Commissioners exactly as it treats its citizens. Otis had simply hoped the standard would be higher for both.
The county’s website assures residents that its agencies are “tasked with the enforcement of county regulations at all levels.” Otis does not doubt they are tasked. He only wonders when the task begins.
There is one body in this county that state law empowers to break that circle. The Legislature gave the Board of Commissioners the power to see that county officers faithfully perform their duties (7-4-2110(1)(b), MCA). Each Commissioner swore to discharge the duties of the office with fidelity. A power the Board knew it needed to use, and did not use, is not discretion. It is nonfeasance. And a Board that will not explain its silence to the citizens it serves is not deliberating. It is stonewalling.
A law that is never enforced is not a law. It is a suggestion with a county seal on it. And officials who treat the law as a suggestion should not be surprised when citizens conclude that they no longer deserve the office.
What the Public Can Do
If this Board will not answer a citizen holding five years of documents, ask yourself what it will do with your complaint. The author asks four things of the public and the press.
Come to public comment. The Commission takes public comment at its regular public meetings, and these Chronicles will be presented there. Stand up and ask one question: “When will this Board use its power under state law to see that county officers do their jobs?”
Write to the Commissioners. Ask the same question in writing, and keep a copy. A written question that goes unanswered is a public record of silence.
Ask the candidates. Ask every candidate for County Commissioner whether he or she will use that power.
To the press. The documents are available. Ask this Board, on the record, why it has not acted.
In the Chapters Ahead
Chapter 2: A Commissioner Goes Absent on Ordinance Enforcement. State law gives the Board of Commissioners the power to see that county officers faithfully perform their duties (7-4-2110(1)(b), MCA). What one Commissioner did with that power about his own complaint, and about a citizen’s request to discuss the very same problem.
More Chapters to come.
[1]County records for this file show filing dates ranging from February 20 to February 26, 2024.