LETTER: Not entitled to their own facts

It has been said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Barry Stearns, of Timbered Ridge Homes and the current president of the North Idaho Building Contractors Association (NIBCA) has evidently decided to make up some facts for his letter attacking me on the issue of impact fee returns published here three weeks ago. For example, he stated “None of the money being refunded was ever intended to be given to Timbered Ridge Homes…” This statement is patently false.

The truth is that the money WAS going to be given to Timbered Ridge Homes, as they were the “payer” of the impact fee when they applied for the building permits. In the official record he alludes to but provides no source for, I strenuously objected to the return of the money to the applicants like Barry’s company instead of my clients, the property owners.

A review of the Timberlake Fire District minutes from December 20, 2012, http://www.timberlakefire.com/12-20-12_TFPD_Regular__Meeting_Minutes.pdf shows that I objected to the approved motion to give the refunds to the builders. “Mr. Larry Spencer commented that he did not feel that the motion conforms to Idaho Statute” and “Larry Spencer asked what the reasoning was behind not directing that impact fee monies be returned to the property owners of record.” The state law on refunding impact fees is clear that they must be sent to the property owner of record.

It wasn’t until I met with the fire district’s attorney that the refunds were directed back to my clients and away from the builders who had no legal standing to receive them. The district’s attorney expressed a concern that the district might be sued by the builders if they reversed course, but I persuasively pointed out that a lawsuit from myself was guaranteed if they didn’t. His problematic compromise was to refund the money to my clients, but require a sign-off from the original applicant releasing the district of liability. Most of my clients would have not received a penny of the refunds had it not been for my effective work on their behalf.

Additionally, it is true that Timbered Ridge Homes has not (unlike other builders) asked for a portion of the refund in exchange for a sign-off on the release form that was prepared by the fire district. Instead, Barry Stearns has simply declined to sign the release forms, resulting in the refunds being held hostage. Despite my having dropped off the district-created form (that would return 100 percent of the fee to the property owners) for his signature, and the district also sending him the forms, the forms were not signed and returned to the district, and Barry has told me he wasn’t sure if he would sign them. I find it additionally interesting that the NIBCA is suing Hayden demanding that sewer impact fees be returned to the applicants (builders) rather than the property owners. Perhaps the NIBCA lawsuit against Hayden would look disingenuous if the president of NIBCA conceded that the fees rightfully should be returned to the property owners by signing the release forms?

LARRY SPENCER

Hayden