Preston ― Attorneys for the town and Blue Camp CT, the developer seeking to build a luxury RV park on Mashantucket Pequot-owned land here, are sparring over the terms of Blue Camp’s appeal of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s failure to approve permits for the project.

In a filing last week in New London Superior Court, Town Attorney Kenneth Slater objected to Blue Camp’s bid to question certain members of the commission to determine whether they engaged in improper communications while the developer’s application was under consideration and whether certain members were eligible to vote on the matter.

The commission members Blue Camp wants to depose are not named in the appeal.

Blue Camp’s attorney, Harry Heller, filed the appeal in late June, about a month after the commission voted to deny the developer’s application for a “special exception” from zoning regulations. Blue Camp also needs site-plan approval for its project, a seasonal RV park and campground resort that would be built on 65 acres of land abutting Avery Pond at the junction of Routes 2 and 164. Much of the site is zoned for commercial resort development with the rest zoned for residential development.

In September, Heller asked the court’s permission to depose commission members to determine whether they engaged in “illegal ex-parte communications” with members of the public or intervenors in the appeal. Heller also told the court such depositions were critical to determining whether commission members who voted on the application had attended public hearings on the application and were eligible to vote.

On May 24, the commission voted 4-3 against commission member Mike Sinko’s motion that Blue Camp’s application be granted. Voting against the motion were Denise Beale, Charles Raymond, Doreen Rankin and Terri Eickel, an alternate commission member. Joining Sinko in voting in favor of the motion were Richard Chalifoux and Fred Eddy, an alternate.

Blue Camp alleges in its appeal that “on information and belief,” one or more commission members “engaged in impermissible contact and discussion” with members of the public and/or intervenors. Residents Susan Hotchkiss and Jennifer Hollstein, listed as defendants in the appeal, have been granted “environmental intervenor” status.

“The core of this allegation is that the communication took place outside of the public record,” the appeal says.

In the commission’s response, Slater writes that trial courts rarely allow evidence from outside the record when considering administrative appeals. He writes that Blue Camp fails to offer any evidence “that supports its burden to demonstrate that it is ‘reasonably probable’ that evidence outside the record is required to decide the appeal.”

Slater also takes issue with Blue Camp’s suggestion that commission members who voted on the developer’s application missed meetings and failed to familiarize themselves with the application, rendering them ineligible to vote.

“A commission member is not disqualified from voting on an application merely because he or she was not present at hearings as long as the member sufficiently acquainted himself or herself with the record,” Slater writes.

In its appeal, Blue Camp alleges the commission “acted unlawfully, in excess of its authority, erroneously, arbitrarily, capriciously, upon unlawful procedures and in abuse of its discretion …" when it denied the application. Blue Camp notes a majority of the commission members who voted "acknowledged on the record” that the application met town regulations.

The town’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission approved a permit for Blue Camp on a 3-2 vote in April.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com