Meeting notice raises questions

Some Kalispell residents aren’t happy with what they consider too short a notice about a public meeting related to the municipal airport.

A public meeting on the master plan for the Kalispell City Airport is tonight.

The meeting was advertised in Saturday’s edition of the Daily Inter Lake, four days prior to the hearing. That was the first time some people had heard about the meeting, they complained to Kalispell City Manager Jane Howington.

Howington told Kalispell City Council members at Monday’s meeting that the airport plan meeting is not a public hearing. It will be led by personnel with Stelling Engineers. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Red Lion hotel in downtown Kalispell. A question and answer session follows from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

While acknowledging that Stelling is not required to post meeting information in the same fashion as the city, Mayor Tammi Fisher asked Howington to ask Stelling officials to post future notices twice in the two weeks prior to a meeting.

In comments to the council, Howington expressed frustration with some members of the public.

“There are a lot of flat-out lies going on attacking city staff as having some kind of conspiracy theory,” she said.

Howington said the airport plan is being prepared to help identify current needs at the airport.