A Jerome County activist has filed in 5th District Court a lawsuit against county commissioners over their decision to allow the construction of a meteorological monitoring station.
Lee Halper is seeking judicial review of the decision, declaratory judgement and review of the alleged violation of Idaho's open meetings law.
"Once again, Jerome County has subjectively interpreted the law to the benefit of an applicant after the fact of an official decision," Halper said Friday.
Halper wants the court to void Jerome County commissioners' decision to uphold a lower body's vote to allow a special-use permit for Idaho Valley LLC's meteorological station.
The "met" station would collect a year's worth of air quality data and weather information on the site of a proposed 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant.
Sempra Generation, operating in Idaho as Idaho Valley LLC, will submit the data as part of an application for a permit from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
Jerome County commissioners would review that permit and other information when considering whether to approve the coal-fired power plant.
The Jerome County Planning & Zoning Commission on June 6 approved the special-use permit. Halper appealed to the county commissioners, who at first remanded the matter back to P&Z.
Sempra attorneys filed on Oct. 10 an objection to the remand, asking commissioners to uphold P&Z's decision.
Before county commissioners signed their names to the remand decision, they reconsidered and opted to let stand the lower body's decision.
"When they deliberate it has to be done in an open meeting," Halper said. "They can't go in to an executive session and say, 'Well, what should we do about this?' They completely flaunted the law from start to finish."
County Commission Chair Veronica Lierman declined to comment on the suit.
Named in the suit are Jerome County, Jerome County Board of Commissioners, Jerome P&Z and Jerome County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Erick Shaner.
