Petition on growth hits snag

By JOHN STANGand WILLIAM L. SPENCE

Citizens outside Kalispell can vote, so signature hurdle grows

The Daily Inter Lake

Kalispell's immediate neighbors as well as city residents are eligible to vote on an initiative to replace the town's new northward growth policy.

But the number is still to be calculated on the signatures required to put that initiative on a ballot, said City Attorney Charlie Harball and Monica Eisenzimer, Flathead County's elections supervisor.

What has happened is that Kalispell and Flathead County officials have reinterpreted who is eligible to vote on this issue.

Now anyone in Kalispell's growth policy area - the city itself plus a zone that surrounds Kalispell - can vote.

Here is how the matter breaks down.

All Montana local governments are legally required to have growth policies. The cities' policies are supposed to cover how they plan to absorb the areas immediately surrounding them. The city governments map out their visions, and those policies govern how annexed areas are zoned when absorbed.

In Kalispell's case, its growth policy extends between several hundred feet to three miles beyond the current city limits.

Kalispell does not have direct clout over the rural parts of the growth policy area, but owners of any parcel seeking annexation must comply with the growth policy. If an rural spot within the growth policy boundaries does not eventually seek annexation, the city has no say over it.

The city's real clout comes from northward developers likely wanting to connect to the city's water and sewer systems, which means eventual annexation.

On Aug. 7, Kalispell's City Council adopted a change to its growth policy that covers almost 13 square miles north of the current city limits on West Reserve Drive.

Roxanna Brothers of Kalispell recently submitted two petitions that call for revoking the Aug. 7 policy change and to install a substitute amendment. She had 90 days to collect 1,541 signatures for each petition, with the first petition's deadline originally thought to be Nov. 20.

But that 1,541-signature number was based on the assumption that only Kalispell residents were eligible to vote on the two ballots. The 1,541 comes from 15 percent of city residents who voted in the November 2005 elections.

However, Montana law says that all voters in the "area covered by the growth policy" are eligible, meaning Kalispell residents plus people living on rural lands within the growth policy boundaries, Harball said.

That means Eisenzimer has to count up the rural voters within Kalispell's growth policy area, add them to the city voters, and then calculate the 15 percent figure. Once the math is verified, the 90-day timetables will begin, Harball said.

Legally, the City Council's Aug. 7 change to the growth policy must be revoked before a new amendment can be substituted, which is why two petitions for two public ballots are needed.

If the issue goes to two ballots, voters will choose between:

. The Aug. 7 policy change, which is currently in effect.

This covers an area extending from West Reserve Drive to a line roughly defined by Church Drive and Birch Grove Road, with the Stillwater River on the west and U.S. 2 on the east.

In broad strokes, this change limits industrial and commercial developments to areas the current city limits. Residential development would be encouraged elsewhere in the almost 13 square miles with small neighborhood commercial spots allowed at key crossroads.

The controversial portion of this change focuses on 600 acres - dubbed "KN-1" - at the northeast corner of U.S. 93 and West Reserve Drive. The bulk of that land is owned by developer Bucky Wolford, who wants to build a mall there.

The city's Aug. 7 amendment allows up to 270 acres of the 600-acre KN-1 area to be used for commercial development and up to another 150 acres to be used for a mix of residential, commercial, office and industrial uses.

. The proposed initiative's amendment to the growth policy.

The initiative more or less mirrors the city's Aug. 7 change, except for the KN-1 area.

This proposal would limit commercial development to 36 acres of the 600-acre site. And it would limit a commercial building or a set of connected commercial buildings to 60,000 square feet - drastically smaller than Wolford's proposed 750,000-square-foot mall.

The initiative also calls for any annexation to be studied for its long-term and short-term effects on jobs, taxes and businesses elsewhere in Kalispell. It also calls for any annexation to be studied on how it affects city services. And any annexed residential area would have to include features addressing the city's affordable housing needs.

This KN-1 area and Wolford's propose mall were the focus of a somewhat similar drive for a public ballot on a Flathead County growth policy change. The county approved a growth policy amendment to allow the still-to-be-constructed mall at that site.

A grassroots group, Let The People Vote, tried to gather signatures to set up a referendum on whether to revoke the county's decision. At that time in late 2003, Deputy County Attorney Jonathan Smith ruled that only people living within the county's planning jurisdiction could vote, which meant people in Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls could not participate.

That matter was litigated up to Montana's Supreme Court, which ruled in September 2005 that Let The People Vote failed to gather enough signatures on the petition within the 90-day deadline - making the who-is-eligible-to-vote issue mute. The court never actually addressed the question of who could sign the petition.

Harball said Montana's counties' growth policy areas end at each city's limits, while cities' growth policy areas extend into the surrounding rural county lands.

Consequently, he contended city residents cannot vote on county growth policy matters, while rural residents can vote on a city's growth policy ballot if they are within the appropriate area.