Don't sign away Kalispell's future
We've said it before, but we felt we had to say it again: Don't sign the petition to dump Kalispell's growth policy for the area north of Kalispell.
This petition is nothing more than an effort to replace the city's legitimate, thoughtful growth policy with an anti-growth policy.
If successful, the petition drive would have the unintended consequence of increasing sprawl and sending retailers to the four corners of the valley looking for open space instead of consolidating growth in the area most logical for it.
The two women behind the petition drive have started a group called Town Champions, and they say they want to "preserve the spirit of Kalispell."
They can't do that by being against growth. Kalispell was founded as part of the westward expansion of the growing American nation back in 1891. The hopes and dreams of those early settlers were that the little township would become a great city on the route of the Great Northern Railway. The railroad eventually passed the city up, but growth did not.
Today, Kalispell is the retail and commercial hub of Northwest Montana, with a great community college, a thriving service industry, a healthy economy and a quality of life that is valued by everyone who has the privilege of living here.
The spirit of Kalispell is not to suppress growth, but to flourish with it.
But the proponents of the petition to repeal the growth policy want to replace growth with stagnation. They would force the area north of Kalispell to accept businesses no bigger than 60,000 square feet. This is a blatant effort to hinder Bucky Wolford's mall proposal, but don't sign this petition just because you don't want the new mall.
It is important for you to realize that the new growth policy proposed by Town Champions would not stop the mall. It would simply force the mall to be developed in the same location but without city services. That means you are voting to deprive the city of Kalispell of the tax dollars associated with such a large project, and you are voting to deny the entire valley the protection of water quality that is guaranteed if the project is hooked up to city sewer services.
Moreover, think about what the limit of 60,000 square feet would mean to you if it had been enforced across the board in north Kalispell up till now. No Home Depot. No Lowe's. No Costco. Who exactly does Town Champions think is shopping in those stores? It's not some stray Californians or New Yorkers. It's us, folks - we the people. This is our town and our opportunity for a better future, and we had better not let anyone take it away from us.
Right now, the city of Kalispell has a plan to consolidate commercial growth in the area north of Kalispell for the next 10 to 20 years. Town Champions would greatly diminish the amount of land available for such growth north of Kalispell and would restrict uses to such an extent that the remaining land would be largely unviable for commercial growth as part of the city of Kalispell.
That leaves only two options, neither of which is good. The growth could continue in the same location, but would have to happen under county jurisdiction with no need for sewer hookups. Or the growth would spread willy-nilly throughout the valley, leading to strip development and what could only be called "unsmart" growth.
So don't sign the petition just because it "sounds good." Even if you think you like the idea, we encourage you to read both the existing growth policy and the proposed replacement before you sign anything. You will discover that the issue is much more complicated than you thought - too complicated for new rules and regulations to be written in a petition booth.
That's why we have a City Council. Let them do what we elected them to do - make policy decisions after hearing from the planning board and from the public. The process was followed to the letter in this case. There is no reason to overturn years of hard work just because a couple of individuals don't like the outcome.
Don't sign any petition to overturn Kalispell's growth policy.