Hays Post
The Ellis County Commission and Commissioner Marcy McClelland are facing a lawsuit over a stalled residential subdivision south of Hays.
The suit was filed in district court late Tuesday afternoon by Mary Alice Unrein, the developer of the proposed subdivision Blue Sky Acres, according to Hays attorney Tom Wasinger.
Click here to see the petition.
In November, the Ellis County Commission failed to approve a final plat of the subdivision on a 1-1 vote, with McClelland dissenting. She cited concerns over groundwater contamination.
Commissioner Dean Haselhorst voted to approved the plat, while Commissioner Barb Wasinger recused herself, citing a conflict of interest. Her husband, Tom, has acted as Unrein’s attorney through the application process.
The Hays Area Planning Commission had previously voted to recommend approval of Blue Sky Acres, which was proposed to have six homes south of Hays.
“One has to wonder how the Hays Area Planning Commission and the Ellis County Commissioners and in particular, Commissioner Marcy McClelland, have arrived at such diametrically opposing conclusions about the approval of Blue Sky Acres Addition given that they are legally obligated to use the same set of facts and criteria when making their decision,” Wasinger wrote in a letter delivered to Hays Post this week. “But I digress, because that’s what a lawsuit against Ellis County would determine.”
Wasinger argued that McClelland’s decision to oppose the final plat, and thus effectively end the project, is an “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable action.”
“The only legal question to be answered, once again, is this very simple straightforward one: Have the appropriate rules and regulations been followed?” Wasinger wrote. “Remember, what we are dealing with here are fundamental individual property rights and the extent to which local governments may limit a landowner’s freedom to use and develop privately owned property.”
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STATEMENT OF MARY ALICE UNREIN
December 20, 2016
Today I was forced to file a lawsuit against the Ellis County Commissioner Marcy McClelland, individually, and the Ellis County Commission to protect the exercise of basic property rights that all the people of Ellis County suppose we have, not just the seven homeowners in VonFeldt’s Subdivision. Commissioner Dean Haselhorst was not named as a defendant because he is not the problem.
It’s a crying shame that the taxpayers of Ellis County will have to spend their hard earned tax dollars on legal fees, but I didn’t have a choice or a fair chance for that matter. To use a football analogy, Commissioner McClelland kept moving the goal post and quite frankly, I have no idea where it might be now.
Commissioner McClelland has made it clear that she believes she has unlimited discretion to make decisions, even if it’s just because she doesn’t like a project. And if she won’t even accept mail from me just because I accidentally misspelled the last two letters of her first name, then there is no hope she would ever back down from her stubborn stance.
On the other hand, I believe a Commissioner’s decision must be reasonable, based on facts, the rules and regulations that everyone else must follow, as well as fundamental fairness. However, based on the actions of Commissioner McClelland, at this time it’s a total crapshoot for people who dare to come before the Ellis County Commission with any sort of real estate development plan.
Based on the presentation on Monday night Karen Purvis, Ellis County’s Environmental Sanitarian, it is impossible to take seriously Commissioner McClelland’s decision which is based on her opinion that the septic systems proposed for Blue Sky Acres Addition would pose a threat to the groundwater in VonFeldt’s Subdivision that is somehow greater than that posed by its existing septic systems. Her acceptance of every other septic system in every rural residential development in Ellis County makes it obvious and abundantly clear that her decision to deny the Final Plat of Blue Sky Acres was 100% arbitrary. It is sadly clear that the only people she is listening to and cares about are the seven homeowners in VonFeldt’s Subdivision who simply don’t want any neighbors.
I hope that other fair-minded people will join in my fight.
Sincerely,
Mary Alice Unrein