Whitefish putting itself in a box

Where's Whitefish Mayor Andy Feury when you need him?

While Feury has left town to go build a factory in China, the Whitefish City Council seems to be sinking in a quagmire of micromanagement and control issues.

As mayor, Feury is the tie-breaker of the bunch and generally he's been the voice of reason on the council and the one who can keep city business moving forward. He understands the process; we're not so sure the rest of the council does.

Monday's Safeway debacle is a prime example of the council's inability to get past its penchant for micromanagement. Safeway is the first big store to go through Whitefish's new box-store law, put in place because the council wanted more control over stores larger than 15,000 square feet.

A part of the Whitefish business community since 1940, Safeway wants to rebuild and expand its store using the corporation's "elite format." The expansion would add 50 to 60 new union-scale jobs. But first, the city's box-store law requires Safeway to get a conditional-use permit for the project.

Without a tie breaker on the council, votes to continue the project and to approve it failed on tie votes. The remaining option was to put it back on the agenda for June 18.

Safeway officials have met several times with the Whitefish Architectural Review Committee - a group created by the council to get more control over how buildings look in the resort town - and progress was being made to get the design just right. In fact, the architectural committee recommended the council proceed with its approval and return the project to the committee for final design tweaking. Normally, that's how the process works.

The process wasn't good enough for the Whitefish council this time around. In their infinite wisdom, council members believe they know best where the loading dock should go, or how much landscaping is enough, or how to best disguise the expansive back side of the store.

We can only hope that Deputy Mayor Cris Coughlin's snippy comment about the architecture being somewhat "prisonesque," wasn't the straw that breaks Safeway's back. The architectural rendering published on the front page of Wednesday's Daily Inter Lake shows an attractive lodge-style building that most communities would be proud to call their own.

If push comes to shove, Safeway could relocate to Kalispell. Safeway officials said the corporation needs to begin construction yet this summer or the Whitefish store stands to lose the $12 million set aside for the project. The corporation wants to remain in Whitefish, though, and has gone the distance to work with city officials.

It's time council members realize that not every building in Whitefish needs to look like the Taj Mahal. Not every bit of landscaping needs to be perfectly coifed. This is Whitefish, not Palm Springs.

As for Mayor Feury, if he's spending most of his time on another continent for the remainder of his term, he'd be well-advised to resign the post so the city could appoint an interim mayor. This council needs all the help it can get.