The City of Montesano’s RV rules continue to be a contentious topic, with the Mayor and a councilman openly disagreeing during a conversation during a council meeting on Oct. 25.

Specifically, the city administration has claimed Monte RV Park at Monte Square has too many RV spots. The RV park says the city approved additional spots after the original conditional use permit was issued. The city says it has no record of approval.

The RV park has 56 spots, despite a conditional use permit granted for 40 spots in July 2013.

City attorney Christopher Coker at the Oct. 25 council meeting said he continues to work with Monte RV Park representatives and their lawyer toward a resolution. While the city did not have paperwork that supports the expanded park as of the Oct. 25 meeting, Coker said the city is trying to figure out what happened and to re-create the events that led to the situation.

“This was not for the purpose of undoing what was done, it was for the purpose of protecting the city’s backside from Ecology — for example — coming in and saying, ‘Wait a second, this is here and nobody told us about it.’ It is much better in my experience to get ahead of those sorts of things, and stay ahead of those things,” Coker said. “Municipalities and counties are not in the business of asking people to tear things down. I’m not seeing the tear down option, we’re just trying to get on the same page and see where things are.”

Earlier in the week, Mayor Vini Samuel had notified the Department of Ecology about the ongoing dispute, and that was a sticking point with Councilman Dan Wood.

“It’s not clean — We have a former mayor and former community development director attesting they approved the 56 units, and while we’re waiting for that information, the mayor chooses to contact Ecology about one of our major businesses in town,” Wood said.

Samuel said she was following the direction of the city attorney.

Wood warned that it created a precedent that could give a negative impression of Montesano to other businesses.

“What are we saying to investors in this community if the election of a new mayor can undo what the previous administration approved?” Wood said. “That is not a safe place to invest money, and it’s not in our community’s best interest to handle it this way.”

Samuel said it’s more about fixing the problem than anything else.

“If the city, or if Monte Square did something wrongful — I don’t know that either of those things have occurred, but if they did — should we not fix the mess we’ve created?” Samuel said. “Ecology is a critical element of that, and that is the advice of the city’s attorney. I’m not understanding why our priority is not to the citizens of the city and not to the business owners of the city.

“Let’s be clear what our responsibility is — it is to protect the citizens of this community.”

On Monday, Oct. 31, city CFO Doug Streeter said the city had not received the documentation it required to verify that the project’s expansion was approved.

A letter included as part of the council’s information packet was submitted by former community development director Mike Wincewicz. The letter, dated in October of this year, supported the contention that the expansion was approved, but Streeter said he was not aware of any additional information.

“To this point, I have not seen any approved drawings with 56 spaces with Mike’s signature on it or anything like that,” Streeter said. “Chris Coker and the Monte Square attorney are dealing with this, so I’m not sure if he’s gotten anything.”

Also on Oct. 31, Samuel said the next step of the process is for Monte RV Park to go the hearing examiner.

“No one knows if (the expansion to 56 spaces) matters. It has to go through a process to see if it matters,” Samuel said. “This needs to go back to the hearing examiner and he will decide what change needs to occur, if anything.”

To Samuel, that’s the likely outcome. Any paperwork that could be submitted by a single employee would not allow for the expansion without a hearing because no employee or mayor has the authority to allow a business to expand to that extent without a hearing, Samuel said.

Without another hearing, the other step would involve the city writing to the hearing examiner to have the current permit revoked.

Samuel said the situation would be resolved by March 2017.