Ligertown Operators Dispute Condemnation Couple Appeals County’s Ruling That Property ‘Unfit For Human Habitation’

The operators of the ramshackle Ligertown Game Farm claim the county’s attempt to condemn the five-acre tract violates their constitutional rights.

“The property was seized without due process of law, no court order, no restraining order, and we are denied access to any inch of the 4.98 acres we own by threat of arrest from the Bannock County sheriff,” Dotti Martin wrote in her petition to the county Board of Appeals.

Martin contends the procedure is improper because the address on the search warrant is incorrect and investigators entered the property before she and Robert Fieber had been charged with any crime.

The board will take up the appeal of Martin and Fieber on Nov. 28.

The county Planning and Development Services Office condemned the property on Sept. 27 after 19 lions escaped from poorly constructed cages on the game farm.

Those exotic cats were shot.

Dozens of other animals, including 45 hybrid wolves, were moved to other facilities, and Martin and Fieber were charged with 107 misdemeanor violations involving care of animals.

Fieber and Martin purchased the property in 1986 on a wraparound installment contract and then headed off foreclosure and eviction in 1991, apparently with a $20,000 loan from Fieber’s parents.

County planning office engineer Terry Bailey said the double-wide mobile home at Ligertown is dangerous and unfit to live in.

The county report said the compound is “so dilapidated, decayed, with faulty construction, with no provision for any light, heat or any sanitary facilities that it is unfit for human habitation and cannot be repaired to meet any code. This structure should be removed as soon as possible to prevent a hazard to the public.”

Bailey called the condemnation proceeding unusual because county officials typically “don’t want to tread on private property rights that are so important to Idahoans.”

But Martin disputed the report’s findings, maintaining that “our septic tank is operational, our water is from the city of Lava and we have access to electricity.”