Old Whitefish, new Whitefish

Money - lots and lots of money - is the talk of the town in Whitefish these days.

The resort town has earned its share of national press in recent years, most of it in the form of positive reviews about the skiing and small-town quaintness. But lately, Whitefish is in the news because of the new money that's come to town in the deep pockets of Internet millionaires and other wealthy heavy hitters who have decided to call Whitefish "home sweet second home."

Whitefish isn't the only Montana community that's seeing unprecedented growth brought on by the influx of wealthy newcomers. But it is one of the most high-profile pockets of burgeoning development. Bloomberg News Service recently published an extensive article about Whitefish, detailing newcomers such as Mark Kvamme, whose California-based firm, Sequoia Capital, financed Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., and Sequoia partner Michael Goguen, whose 32,000-square-foot mansion overlooking Whitefish Lake has become a symbol of the new affluence.

Longtime local residents lament the death of the Whitefish they once knew and loved, the Whitefish held together by the blue-collar logging and railroad industries, the Whitefish in which most people knew each other as they walked along the town's main street.

That struggle between the old and the new was addressed last week at a symposium appropriately staged in Whitefish by the Montana State University-based Burton K. Wheeler Center for Public Policy. A planner from the high-growth Gallatin Valley summed it up well, saying "we need to accept the fact that, when dealing with something as powerful as national and international market demand, there are going to be both positive and negative impacts."

Whitefish residents can't turn back the hands of time, but they can continue to have a voice at planning-board and City Council meetings as developers seek approval for high-end residential and commercial projects. Both planners and council members in Whitefish are working overtime to make sure the community retains those qualities that draw people to it in the first place.

It's not an easy job.

The new money in Whitefish is at best a mixed bag of blessings and burdens. It's easy to bad-mouth the outsiders, but if Whitefish residents were to truly take stock of their assets, they may be pleasantly surprised to realize they have many amenities other towns only dream of.

A state-of-the-art aquatic and fitness center, indoor skating pavilion, performing-arts center, library, youth sports complex, skateboard park and soon-to-be-completed school auditorium were all built as public-private partnerships. Working-class Whitefish residents contributed to all of these projects, but so did the wealthy, and the fact is, they couldn't have been built without the generous contributions of well-to-do newcomers.

Growing pains are inevitable. There will continue to be struggles over affordable housing, increased traffic, preservation of open space and soaring real-estate prices. But it bodes well that Whitefish's elected officials and city staff seem to be quite cognizant of the work that will be involved in retaining the essence of the small town. That's a positive force that both the wealthy and the working class can bank on.