Whitefish mayor resigns

Whitefish Mayor Andy Feury has resigned to spend much of the next two years in China, where his company has embarked on a joint venture to start a new factory near Shanghai.

Feury conducted his last City Council meeting on Monday, and Deputy Mayor Cris Coughlin was sworn in as interim mayor. She'll serve until the end of the year.

Coughlin, Nick Palmer and former mayor Mike Jenson are in a three-way race for mayor. A mail-in election will be held in November and the winner will begin serving in January.

Often called the council's "institutional memory," Feury began serving on the council in 1991 and became mayor in 1999. He led the city through one of its most challenging periods of growth, and was given a standing ovation by the audience after announcing his resignation.

"I can't ever express my gratitude to the community for supporting and tolerating me," Feury said during Monday's council meeting.

Feury said he's spent an estimated 10,000 volunteer hours serving the city and looked back on numerous projects that came to fruition during his tenure, including the U.S. 93 expansion and landscaping, the Wave, train depot renovation, a new library, the resort tax, ice rink, youth sports complex, bike paths, the architectural review committee, city sign ordinance, extension of Baker Avenue, Baker Avenue business park, 1996 master plan, a downtown master plan, Big Mountain sewer agreement and the forthcoming growth policy.

Throughout the years, it was his love of the process of local government that kept him coming back for more, he said.

Feury's business, Feury & Co., joined forces with Wing Fat, a leading packaging manufacturer in Hong Kong, to manufacture transfer foil that's used on home and office particle-board furniture. The project involves moving Wing Fat's operation 1,000 miles, from a factory inland from Hong Kong to a location outside of Shanghai, where his business partners own land.

The company makes various kinds of films that are laminated onto particle board. Feury has been doing business in Asia, mostly Korea, for the past decade.

About five years ago he conducted an exploratory business trip to China and found the conditions ripe to begin doing business with Chinese manufacturers.

Feury said he and his wife, Terri, will continue to call Whitefish home and will remain active in the community once the factory in China is up and running.

"I won't be gone forever," he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com