City/county conflicts seen as harming the Flathead
The Daily Inter Lake
A group of business people and active citizens who gathered to assess the Flathead Valley's future on Wednesday morning sounded two themes over and over again:
City and county leaders must work together - not compete - and public discussions need to be more civil, more constructive and less polarized.
The forum, called Flathead on the Move, was one of several meetings held across the state to help communities find ways to take advantage of rapid growth in Montana's seven urban centers.
Frustration with city/county conflicts is common across the state, said Matt McKinney, director of the Public Policy Research Institute at the University of Montana. In the past, he added, those concerns didn't exist because city and county issues involving such things as planning and transportation didn't clash.
"It's just an outgrowth of how cities and counties have grown," McKinney said. With that growth, people are seeing that "it's all one landscape, and the landscape doesn't acknowledge Whitefish, Kalispell, Columbia Falls."
Attendees at Wednesday's meeting brainstormed several ideas for fostering and managing economic growth, including finding ways to revitalize natural resource industries, coordinating planning and zoning across jurisdictions, tax reform and supporting lifelong education and training.
Nothing got more attention, though, than electing local leaders who will work together.
People still identify with specific communities, said Steve Thompson, Glacier program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association and a member of the Flathead on the Move steering committee.
"But," he added, "we all live in this valley. We're all residents of a single place.
"There's been a frustration that there hasn't been more cooperation. I'm not surprised to hear that come through loud and clear."
Without that cooperation, the Flathead Valley could end up fragmented, without a clear plan for development, education or conservation, said Mike Gwiazdon, president of Sportsman and Ski Haus.
"The end result is we all potentially end up losing all the reasons why we live and work here," he said.
Gwiazdon also said there's a listening problem in the county, specifically when it comes to natural resource issues, where the debate has been polarized to the point of petrification.
"I don't think there's a lot of us who are for the environment who don't also want to see the natural resource businesses be successful," he said. "There's no doubt they want the same thing we do, as far as the environment and the beauty."
The ideas generated Wednesday will be addressed again Nov. 4, when another forum will convene to look at ways to act on those ideas.
Reporter Alan Choate may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at achoate@dailyinterlake.com