A word of warning, to all the people, who have gotten or plan to get a permit from the Columbia County Land Use Department. On February 17 we held our monthly CPAC meeting, on our agenda was an issue that seemed to be an important subject for a number of people who attended and especially for the applicant. The applicant runs a reload business on his property in a rural setting with no close neighbors and sufficient acreage, the applicant is certified and approved by the ATF, and has all the necessary license's to carry out his legal business. In fact the individual did not need to get any permits from the county because ATF is the ruling agency on reloading, powder and all related aspects of this type of business. Unfortunately the Columbia County Land Use department decided to ignore the ATF and the regulations governing the business and proceeded to try and shut down the legal operation.

The land use department first sent out the CPAC notification for a Conditional Use Permit to the wrong CPAC. This delayed the time frame for the meeting then the department sent out paper work to the applicant's neighbors with in a 5-mile radius of the business. This action is not a normal procedure. Granted the department usually sends out notices to the adjacent property owners that would be in the normal impact zone for comment. I question why was the departments procedure so different in this case? Then there was a letter from the applicant's competitor from Vernonia who wanted the applicants business shut down immediately. Someone has a special friend in the land use department?

Needless to say actions made by the land use department seemed to imply that people in the department was doing favors for the applicants competitor.

The next thing that happened was the applicant received a letter from the land use department stating that they were not compliant and that if they did not respond that day of receiving the letter they would be fined $500.00 a day until they were compliant and that they needed to come down to the land development. So the applicant went to the land development office and proceeded to ask about the letter and also asked who in land development turned him in to the ATF for running a business that was not following the regulations. Because in the mean time the ATF had done their scheduled inspections and the man passed with out a problem but mentioned the fact that someone from land development turned him in to their ATF office. Both county employees denied the accusation. Which was later found to be a lie.

The applicant questioned land development about the $500.00 a day fine and said he had bought the $300.00 conditional use permit and it was not his fault land development sent out the wrong info to the CPACs etc. and extended the time frame. The enforcement person then told him that if he did not comply enforcement would come to the business and start taking away equipment. Needless to say, things got worse and worse between the county and the citizen. This man jumped through all the hoops the county threw, only to find the faster he jumped the faster and more hoops the county launched at him. Actions by the county implied that they were trying to shut him down for no apparent reason.

Until the CPAC meeting, where I and two other people sit as an advisory group, after listening and viewing documentation provided by the applicant and was refused to view documentation held in a file by the county planners. And the fact that ATF by regulation are the superceding authority on this type of business and clearly states that the county has no power or legal authority on this matter. It was simple to give the businessman a YES. Even though it was clearly apparent that we had no authority and the county had none, but the county would not abide by ATF regulations. The CPAC group and the public promptly questioned, and reprimanded the planners for their apparent mishandling of the issue. We ask the planners if they had received any faxes from the ATF they both replied NO. I ask the planners if either of them had turned the man in to ATF, the response was NO.

A complete deliberate LIE

The next day information was brought forth that the planners had deliberately lied to the advisory board and to the public. The ATF had sent not 1 but 4 faxes to the land development office to one of the very planners that sit at the meeting and denied the question about faxes. And to the fact that yes one of the planners that sat at that CPAC meeting was the one who had turned the business into the ATF.