By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ

Donna Palmer raises registered breeding stock -- Nubian dairy goats -- on her farm off Blackwell Road. During an interview in her kitchen, she keeps one ear cocked for the intercom to the barn, where one of her nanny goats will soon go into labor.

It's always an anxious time, she says, but nothing like the prospect of a planned 117-unit RV park development going in next door thanks to an oversight by the county planning department.

"They can't provide fencing good enough to keep animals from running up the hill or aborting every time some big RV comes in," Palmer says. "And we have water table concerns -- they're going to run it all off of one well."

Palmer isn't alone. Other neighbors whose elk and poultry ranches also adjoin the proposed development have objected to the placing of an RV park in an area zoned for exclusive farm use.

Jackson County's own legal counsel has judged the project to be in violation of the county's land use and zoning ordinances.

But Palmer and the others never got a chance to tell their side of the story at a public hearing. That's because the county Planning Department failed to process the developers' application soon enough.

A planning hearing was scheduled, and Palmer and others dutifully gathered a stack of testimony and exhibits an inch thick.

Upon arriving at the Jackson County Courthouse to present the evidence on Jan. 9, however, they were advised that a 120-day deadline for the county to take action had expired the preceding day. The applicant had filed a writ of mandamus requiring the county to approve the project.

"John Eads (the county's planning hearings officer) said it was now out of their hands," says Kay Thompson, who raises guinea hens and other fowl on property adjoining the planned RV park. "It should never have been considered because it didn't comply. We're doing what we're supposed to do. We're on EFU (exclusive farm use) land.

"The county still could make its case in court -- but they won't."

Oregon law allows the county to challenge a writ of mandamus by presenting reasons in court why a project should not be approved even if it has slipped past a deadline.

However, developers Frank and Lucy Rutigliano and Joe Rutigliano of Gold Hill filed suit against Jackson County seeking damages for unnecessary delays and court costs. In a 2-1 split, county commissioners recently voted not to challenge the Rutigliano project with commissioners Ric Holt and Jack Walker in the majority and Sue Kupillas dissenting.

"I can't say it's exactly fair for the neighbors," Walker said Tuesday. "But when people don't follow the rules we're very strict, so when we don't meet the deadlines, unless it's a really drastic violation, I think we have to allow it. ... If I truly thought it was a horrible detriment to their ability to farm, maybe I would have felt differently."

Holt said he voted to break the deadlock because the county missed its own deadline. Holt said he did not recall being advised by staff that neighbors did not get a hearing.

Walker said the real source of trouble is a cumbersome county land development ordinance more than twice as thick as many other Oregon counties' ordinances. The ordinance is difficult to interpret and led to delays in the planning process, he said.

The commissioners also have called for an audit of the county's planning processes to identify and eliminate bottlenecks.

County Planning Director Laurel Prairie-Kuntz said Tuesday that the lapsed deadline occurred because a staffer erroneously gave her the impression that the department could obtain a second extension to process the project.

"By the time we learned an extension would not be granted, it was too late to provide the required advance notice for the hearing," Prairie-Kuntz said.

Prairie-Kuntz says the department has been dogged by high staff turnover -- of eight planners, five have been on the job less than nine months. And the workload has increased; the department is now processing more than 2,000 applications a year.

Nevertheless, only one other application in the past year has been decided by a lapsed deadline, Prairie-Kuntz said.

But Mike LaNier, a planner for Richard Stevens, who represents the Rutiglianos, said there were many more cases in which applicants had voluntarily granted extensions to the planning department.

"I can put my hands on at least four such cases without leaving my desk," LaNier said Tuesday. "I'm not knocking Laurel -- she works her butt off; she's very diligent. But the process they have adopted is so complex. The procedures have created a monster, and the ordinance itself is cumbersome."

LaNier said he understood the neighbors' frustrations, but developers too were frustrated by the ordinance with steep fees and long delays.

"If you make an application, and five months later you still don't have any action, I would be upset too," he said. "Time is money in this business."

Palmer and her neighbors fear a court battle to have their say will prove expensive.