Concerns on the home front

Tester hears local needs for stimulus

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., left Kalispell with a long to-do-list after talking with business, public and nonprofit leaders Tuesday morning about the federal economic stimulus law.

Tax credits for business investment and manufacturing, a share of the construction industry relief for small and independent contractors, a stable infusion into public school general funds, and a way to expedite the receipt of promised funds were on wish lists of some of the 20 people who shared the table with Tester at the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce office.

"The free fall of real estate values has got to be stopped," Wink Jordan of Century 21 Whitefish Land Office said, making the case for incentives that could get investors to buy foreclosed and other distressed properties.

"It's all well and good to have the first-time home-buyer credit, but the guy who's been out there making his payments all along now has no faith in the value of what he owns," Jordan said.

Tester was in town to gauge local reaction to the $781 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that President Obama signed into law Tuesday in Denver, and find out what people really need from the act.

Sen. Max Baucus was scheduled to be in Kalispell as well, but took part in the Denver signing ceremony instead.

Tester highlighted dollar figures and objectives of what he and Baucus, in voting for it last week, have come to call the Jobs Bill.

It's designed to accomplish three things, he said: Fix credit markets, fix housing markets and stimulate jobs.

Gross domestic product and jobs go hand-in-glove, with economists forecasting a 2 percent drop in the nation's GDP in 2009. Unemployment is soaring, with half of the nation's 3.6 million unemployed losing their jobs just in the last three months.

The stimulus package, he told the group, should be the first step in turning that around.

Montana is slated to get $211 million for highways, $40 million to protect clean water and $213 million for students. Add to that the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home-buyers and $800 tax credit per couple in a family, and he said it will help create or retain 11,000 jobs in the state.

"This is the bottom line, this is what this bill is about," Tester said. "This is about jobs."

He reminded the group this is a global crisis and no single act will bring an immediate turn-around. But, he said, lawmakers learned from the Troubled Assets Relief Program snafu, accountability is a huge issue.

"We've got to be more thoughtful than we were with TARP," he said.

Here's a summary of comments presented to Tester:

n Chuck Roady, vice president and general manager for F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co., told Tester that a direct tax credit would be the most helpful in his company's plans to build a biomass co-generation plant near Columbia Falls.

n Orthopedic surgeon Larry Iwerson noted that the act holds little hope of helping with patient care, but said an information technology tax break for converting to electronic medical record keeping would achieve that end for his staff at Flathead Orthopedic.

n Patti Gregerson, executive director of the local Habitat for Humanity, said her nonprofit was one of only two builders to increase their building permit applications recently - the other was the nonprofit Community Action Partnership. She sought assurance that smaller builders will share in tax benefits.

n Terry Kramer of Kramer Enterprises echoed her. "My big concern is that sole proprietors and independent contractors are not getting any help from this," Kramer said. "Some of my friends have gotten no jobs since last summer."

n David Gates of NorthWest Energy said he was pleased with funding for home weatherization, but asked for tax credits on wind-power generation. His company is evaluating $1.5 billion in such projects.

n Flathead Electric Cooperative's Mark Johnson lauded alternative energy development but asked for equal emphasis on transmission of that energy to regions such as the Flathead that can't generate commercially viable solar electricity. He put in a plug, too, for funding of a shovel-ready geothermal project.

n Kalispell Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Dan Zorn was grateful for Title I and special education funding but questioned what will happen after the two-year infusion expires and schools must ask voters for general fund dollars again.

n Flathead Valley Community College could make good use of worker retraining money targeted at the bill's new infrastructure projects, Vice President of Instruction Kathy Hughes said. She asked for equipment to help teach in the highest-demand student areas - career, technical and health care.

n Bill Nelson of the Flathead Job Service spoke of the near-daily workshops his staff holds for many of the 500 to 600 people laid off monthly in the Flathead, but added, "I really hope they have jobs to go to."

n In Libby, the 411-acre former Stimson Lumber Co. sawmill site that was turned over to the city is lying undeveloped for lack infrastructure funding, Paul Rumelhart of Kootenai Regional Development Center said. He asked Tester to take another look at local-match requirements.

n Dick Sonju of Sonju Industrial shared the good news of Raytheon's interest in setting up an aerospace engineering and manufacturing center in the Flathead, and asked for manufacturing tax breaks to help that happen.

n Kalispell Mayor Pam Kennedy once again pushed for money for the U.S. 93 bypass, but made a case for the local housing industry and money to install the infrastructure for it. "I have great concern on where the 'stimulus bill) money is coming to" - the state or individual cities, she said. "If we do projects, we need to put infrastructure in the ground."

n Whitefish Mayor Mike Jenson said his city's reliance on tax increment funding to cover major infrastructure projects has helped the city grow, but now it needs to look to the federal government for help building its emergency services center.

n Kalispell Police Chief Roger Nasset asked that a federal requirement for local matching dollars on money for fire and safety officers be lifted or lightened for at least two years. The city is short five officers and dispatchers and needs to put more officers on the street.

n Nomad Technologies, which builds communications systems that often end up in mobile command units, brings 90 to 95 percent of its business from out of state and leaves most of that money here, Will Schmautz said. But federal grant funding approved in 2007 still has not made it into the pipeline; he asked for an expedited process in this bill.

n Flathead County Commissioner Joe Brenneman told Tester he hopes federal money will make its way here to help pave some 800 miles of dusty county roads. Commissioners had decided to hire contractors to do the work, but have no funds for it.

n Wendy Doely, executive director of the Flathead Community Health Center is "cautiously optimistic" about getting funding from the bill, but said its capacity already is being stretched with higher numbers of unemployed families here.

n Bob Schneider of First Interstate Bank emphasized that Montana banks had no part in the national subprime lending trend, and drew the distinction between investment and commercial banks. There is money to lend in Montana, he said, and banks here want to do just that.

n Mick Blodnick of Glacier Bancorp pleaded for an end to the mark-to-market accounting practice that fixes the selling price of a loan or futures investment only at the time it's sold, leaving values open to wild speculation. "I don't think TARP would have been necessary if, in 2007, they would not have allowed an extension of mark-to-market," Blodnick said.

To figure out where the money from the economic stimulus bill is going, visit www.recovery.gov

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com