Council to discuss two towers Impasse between city, KGEZ is topic tonight

The Daily Inter Lake

Should Kalispell hire a consultant to figure to how to move or change KGEZ's broadcast towers to allow the city airport's runway to extend south?

The Kalispell City Council will discuss that matter tonight at a workshop session, during which no votes are legally allowed.

The city wants to extend the airport's runway 1,000 feet farther south.

However, KGEZ's two towers are higher than what the Federal Aviation Administration will allow for a longer runway being closer to them.

The city and radio station owner John Stokes have been at an impasse for years about the heights and the potential moving of the towers. The station and its towers are outside the city limits.

In a recent interview, Stokes contends that the city won't pay him a fair amount to mitigate his costs in moving or changing the towers. Stokes also contends that the city has offered bribes or otherwise encouraged others to file lawsuits against him to make him lose the towers.

The city countered that it has not offered money to others to sue Stokes, and has not otherwise encouraged lawsuits.

The city government has identified Hatfield and Dawson Consulting Engineers of Seattle as the firm that will study the tower situation, if the council decides to go that route.

Also at 7 p.m. today, the council is scheduled to discuss:

. Whether Kalispell should annex 22 unincorporated areas within the city limits.

Typically, Kalispell only annexes lands whose owners seek annexation, and has stuck to that stance.

However, confusion has popped up - especially in figuring out which fire departments should respond to which fires - with the tiny islands of Flathead County land surrounded by Kalispell.

The 22 sites total about 322 acres, or roughly half of a square mile.

The largest site is the 162 acres of Greenacres, which has 265 lots within southern Kalispell. Other significant sites include 24.8 acres of North Haven Heights, 40.4 acres of the Meadowland Subdivision and 76.9 acres in the Ashley Creek area.

. Whether the city should exempt Davar and Todd Gardner from paying a roughly $14,500 stormwater drainage-impact fee when their auction house - just south of Four Corners - is annexed into Kalispell.

The Gardners have paid sewer, water, fire and police impact fees when the auction house hooked up to the city's new water and sewer lines extending to the Old School Station Industrial Park, which is two miles south of the rest of Kalispell.

The Gardners contend they had built a stormwater system under Flathead County's requirements, and think paying an city impact fee would result in paying a drainage-impact fee twice.

. Whether the Trumbull Creek Crossing's subdivision's first phase should enter an annexation district agreement with Kalispell, which would set some obligations and guidelines for a future annexation. If the council decides not to go with an annexation district, it has to figure out how it would handle sewer-impact fees.

Trumbull Creek Crossing is on the north side of the Evergreen Water and Sewer District, and is not contiguous to Kalispell. However, under an earlier complicated agreement, it is hooking up to Evergreen's sewer lines to have its sewage transported to Kalispell's treatment plant.

Trumbull Creek Crossing is expected to eventually seek annexation into Kalispell.