Camp Bay Road vacation to be heard — again — on Feb. 2

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey
Reader Staff

Bonner County commissioners will reconsider the vacation of a portion of Camp Bay Road at a public hearing Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022 — a file they’ve heard before, and previously approved, before a District Court judge ruled Nov. 15 that the board had failed to consider a possible conflict of interest and exercised an “abuse of discretion” in vacating the road to a developer in April.

According to the ruling, handed down by District Judge Cynthia K.C. Meyer, the court “remand[ed] this issue to the Board for further proceedings.”

Those “further proceedings” will take place Feb. 2 at 1:30 p.m. at the Bonner County Administration Building.

Fred and Jennifer Arn filed for judicial review of the board’s April decision, contending that the road served as a public access point to Lake Pend Oreille — a point affirmed by the court. In addition, the court called into question the board’s alleged failure to acknowledge a possible conflict of interest by former Bonner County Road and Bridge Director Steve Klatt, who also served at the time on the board of Green Enterprises — the entity requesting the road vacation and, in partnership with M3 ID Camp Bay, LLC., which is developing the Camp Bay area in Sagle.

When asked for comment on the court’s ruling, Commissioner Dan McDonald limited his remarks to Klatt’s involvement.

“With respect to the Steve Klatt issue, Mr. Klatt had previously recused himself from all of the details and recommendations from Road and Bridge claiming he had a conflict of interest,” McDonald told the Reader in a Nov. 29 email. “That’s the reason I felt it was irrelevant to the discussion on the file. Knowing he had no part in the recommendation to Planning on that file made it a pointless discussion point in my opinion.”