Peters tries for council from a different ward

After a brief hiatus, Jayson Peters wants to return to Kalispell's City Council - lining himself up as the philosophical opposite of his opponent, Jim Atkinson.

Peters served 3 1/2 years as a Ward 4 council member before moving for personal reasons last summer to Ward 3, giving up his seat. Now running again from a new ward, he faces Atkinson, an 18-year council veteran.

Peters, 32, travel manager at Semitool Inc. for the past 5 1/2 years, portrays himself as a watchdog on Kalispell's city government, and portrays Atkinson as someone who automatically goes along with city staff recommendations. He contends Atkinson has never voted against any fee or tax increase proposed by the city staff.

Council members are currently wrestling with what the city government's role should be in economic development and growth issues. Peters is in the camp that says city government should concentrate on providing basic services and should leave economic development efforts chiefly to the private sector.

For example, he supports the concept of Kalispell having new industrial parks such as the fledgling Old School Station south of the city, but questions how involved city government should be in supporting them.

Peters is uncomfortable with the city providing a significant amount of street and sewer construction for the Old School Station while the site's developers have not announced any nailed-down tenants for the site beyond moving the local Fun Beverage Inc. plant there.

"There's a lot of missing holes" in what the city knows about the Old School Station's tenant prospects, Peters said.

He also contends the City Council often approves zoning changes and pursues tax-increment districts before solid prospects and solid projects materialize for those areas.

"It's like a family saying, 'We're going to have a new kid. … Let's buy a house and new car,'" he said.

The city needs to concentrate on encouraging the development of properties inside Kalispell rather than pushing outward expansions, he said.

Meanwhile, Peters said the city needs to work on mending political fences with Flathead County's government and with rural fire districts surrounding Kalispell.

The rural districts fret about losing pieces of their tax bases when the city annexes parts of their areas. The city government could work with them at the state level on a solution to rural districts losing tax funds, Peters said.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com