LA PINE – Gerald Gawith pulled Larry Armstrong out of his chair and took a swing at his fellow board member during Monday night’s meeting of the La Pine Park and Recreation District advisory board.

The catalyst for the fight: a tool shed and chicken coop.

They were built at the district’s Rosland Campground this winter. Board members argued Monday over how the shed was paid for and whether the building was properly permitted.

Armstrong questioned his fellow board members about the shed and accused them of misappropriating funds from a National Forest Service grant.

”He’s calling us liars, and then saying that we misappropriated the funds – it’s like saying that we stole from park and rec,” Ann Gawith, president of the board and wife of Gerald Gawith, said Tuesday about Armstrong. ”I think that he has some sort of personal agenda, and I don’t know what it is.”

Armstrong said he had no ulterior motives. He just said he couldn’t find a record of a vote in the board’s minutes to approve the shed in the first place.

”This board often does things and then later says they’ve been approved by the board. I’m very adamant that if it’s not in the minutes, it’s not fact,” Armstrong said Tuesday. ”Without (the minutes), there’s no record of what was said or who said it or anything.”

The other board members said at the meeting that regardless of the official minutes, they remembered voting to approve the shed’s construction. Board members also denied that any grant money had been mishandled.

The shouting match turned physical when Gerald Gawith grabbed Armstrong and pulled him out of his chair, said board members and others who attended the meeting.

The two wrestled while other board members ran over and yelled, people who attended the meeting said.

The struggle ended when Randy Gordon – Democratic candidate for Deschutes County Commission who attended the public meeting as a La Pine resident – managed to physically separate Gawith and Armstrong, people who attended the meeting said.

No charges have been filed.

Gerald Gawith resigned from the board and walked out of the meeting after the altercation.

He declined to comment, instead referring questions to his wife, Ann Gawith.

”He doesn’t want to be a member of a board that can’t work together for a common goal, and instead wastes time looking for reasons to be mad at each other,” she said.

John Taylor, also a board member, and Armstrong both live at Rosland Campground year-round. Taylor, who built the shed, is camp host. And Armstrong, who opposes the shed, is caretaker.

”It’s a shop, for tools,” Taylor said of the shed. ”It has a bay for a tractor and equipment. On the back it’s got a little added-on structure for chickens, and I paid for that part myself.”

The shed cost about $500, according to Taylor. He said the chicken coop cost about $125 of his personal money.

The coop houses Taylor’s chickens and is fodder for even further debate.

Deschutes County’s code enforcement department is currently investigating whether a permit was required to build the shed.

The shed measures 120 square feet, according to Taylor.

But the chicken coop that he added onto the shed might set it over a county limit.

Deschutes County code requires a building permit for any structure over 120 square feet.

”A complaint was turned in that a structure was built without a permit,” said Lori Furlong, Deschutes County code enforcement technician. Because the case is under investigation, Furlong said she could not discuss specifics.

Rosland Campground sits on 40 acres just West of the Little Deschutes River. The land was donated by Crown Pacific to the district in a 1998 land exchange with the U.S. Forest Service.

The campground produces a yearly income between $600 and $700, said Ann Gawith.

The district is run by an advisory board of five volunteers elected by voters who live in the district.

The district, which was established in 1990, has no tax base. It relies entirely on grants, donations and fund-raisers, Ann Gawith said.

Lily Raff can be reached at 541-617-7836 or lraff@bendbulletin.com.