Better times ahead for mountain?

Winter Sports Inc. moves into the upcoming Big Mountain ski season with a new slate of directors and optimism buoyed by the infusion of $12.5 million raised through a private placement of common stock.

Plans are in the works for a new hotel and conference center that many believe will be an integral part of the resort's ability to compete in an increasingly competitive ski industry.

There's much anticipation that Fortune 500 CEO William Foley's presence on the board and as the biggest stockholder of Winter Sports will bode well for Big Mountain. He certainly has the financial background and wherewithal to make good things happen up there. But he knows that change won't happen overnight, and he said as much at Winter Sports' annual meeting this week.

He stressed that his investment in the mountain and in Whitefish is long-term, and he's willing to wait for a return on his investment.

That's reassuring, because the success of Big Mountain feeds the economic success of the Flathead Valley as a whole. We wish Foley and the new directors well.

In case you missed it, Whitefish doubled its size two weeks ago when the City Council annexed Whitefish Lake in its entirety. The annexation enabled the city to move ahead with new planning boundaries for zoning and subdivision development, but raised a couple of interesting questions in the process.

Specifically, will the city's open-container and firearms laws put an end to boaters' ability to drink a beer or hunt waterfowl from their boats?

City officials are still working through those issues, but we hope they'll use common sense in governing what have been time-honored traditions on the lake. As council member Cris Coughlin aptly put it, we don't need a "Miami Vice" type of enforcement if someone wants to sip a brew while waiting for the fish to bite.

We would like to take note of the passing of Linc France, a longtime Columbia Falls resident who may be most familiar to Inter Lake readers as an inveterate letter writer.

Over the years, Linc covered a wide range of topics in his letters to the editor.

He wrote about the Panama Canal, Medicare, military service, patriotism, the United Nations, the "Red Chinese," national politics, global taxes and Social Security, to name a few.

His letters were never long, they were sometimes quirky, but they were always sincere.

And Linc made his mark in ways other than the opinion page. He was a fixture at Columbia Falls City Council meetings (and served on the council for a time as well) and was a dedicated volunteer for a host of community organizations. He also was well-known as a one-man beautification committee for the town.

Linc died Sunday at 84. He will be missed.