Trouble in Paradise

Our special little paradise on earth is being threatened. Karen Lords, an officious person in the Fremont County Planning and Building department has decided that she does not want us to have our dogs here. We received a threatening letter from Kathy Thompson, the Compliance Officer, claiming that we were running a commercial sled dog operation on property that is zoned non-commercial in an area that is mapped as visually sensitive. Explaining over the phone that we were not a commercial operation and that we were not violating any of the rules for a visually sensitive area got us nowhere. Karen Lords was extremely rude to both my husband and myself and insisted that we had to come in to her office and fill out paperwork and get on the schedule to appear before the zoning commission.

We drove the 50 miles down to the county seat at St Anthony. Not exactly what we wanted to do that day, but it seemed important. Turns out they were even more rude in person. Karen told us that she had already determined that we were commercial because "most people do not have 30 to 50 dogs; therefore it is not a residential activity." That is the most bizarre definition of commercial that I have ever heard. Of course, it has no basis in the law. Fremont County has no rule limiting the number of dogs on any property, and for that matter, neither does the town of Island Park although we are not actually within the city limits.

Karen had told me over the phone that there were "LOTS" of complaints about the dogs, and she told my husband that there were "dozens" of complaints. When pressed for the exact number and nature of the complaints, she said that it was the sheriff and the county attorney who had the complaints. We stopped by the sheriff's office, and they had nothing at all except for a single complaint about the dogs not having shade and water. We already knew about that one because a sheriff's deputy had stopped by our place to check it out as is required when they receive a complaint. He told us at that time that he saw nothing at all wrong with anything he saw, and he was not very complimentary about the complainer. The county attorney likewise had received no complaints except for the one that the sheriff's office had. So, Karen Lords made up a bald-faced lie, and we are pretty steamed about it.