Whitefish moving forward with dirt-bike facility

The Whitefish City Council cautiously moved forward Tuesday with plans for a dirt-bike park, agreeing to allow a jumping facility at Armory Park if members of the Flathead Fat Tires Club can negotiate an acceptable location with neighbors.

Mayor Andy Feury broke a tie vote in favor of proceeding with the dirt-bike park. Bike-club members will have two weeks to work with adjacent property owners and will report back to the council July 18.

Council members Mark Wagner, Tom Muri and Velvet Phillips-Sullivan opposed the facility largely because no master plan is in place for Armory Park. Without a master plan, the city is forced to take a "piecemeal" approach to developing the park, and issues such as a lack of parking can't be adequately addressed, they maintained.

The bike club proposes to build a series of dirt-bike jumps on a half-acre of park land just north of the Roy Duff Memorial Armory community center, near the area where a skateboard park will be built this summer. Club members would maintain the facility.

Club spokesman Pete Costain suggested, and the council agreed, to a one-year temporary facility.

"We'll tear it down if it doesn't work out," Costain said. "It could be removed in one day."

Neighbors have concerns about dust from the jumps and traffic along narrow Armory Road.

Kathy Wram, one of the closest neighbors to the proposed dirt-bike jumps, asked council members whether they had walked the site to observe how dust could be a problem. She also pointed to dangerous conditions for pedestrians and bicyclists along Armory Road.

Public Works Director John Wilson, speaking as a private person, said he wanted to see the grassy slope of the park preserved.

"I regret speaking against this. I'm about to make myself Darth Vader to some nice young men," Wilson said, "but I think we'd be wasting the viewshed of this location. It's a unique view. On the top of the hill you can see the Columbia [Mountain] Range."

Wilson stressed the importance of a master plan for Armory Park.

Although the council agreed in theory with a master plan, it didn't solidify how such planning would proceed. As other land-use proposals surface - a golf course and dog park were two uses mentioned - the city will need a big-picture plan for the acreage, Councilman Doug Adams said.

"I can see if we piecemeal it, we'll end up with a mess," he said.

Councilman Mark Wagner pointed to a lack of parking as a potential problem.

"I don't want a repeat of the ice rink," Wagner said, referring to parking problems at the new covered ice pavilion. "This is why we should do a master plan. If we haven't looked at that issue, we're blowing it."

Feury said he didn't see a big problem with letting the bike club try the facility for a year.

"It's a good amenity for a whole lot of kids," Feury said. "It's low cost and very easily changed. If they do it for a year, we'll take a look at it and we'll have an idea if it will work. We'll have the data."

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.