Council avoids tough decision

When politicians try to avoid making hard decisions because they worry about how it will affect their popularity, that’s when government either grinds to a halt or staggers to its most inefficient worst.

That just about seems to describe the situation on the Kalispell City Council, where for the past 15 (or is it 20 or more?) years, our elected leaders have punted on the future of the city airport so many times that you’d be forgiven if you thought you’d seen more footballs than airplanes taking off there.

The latest indecision came Monday when the council couldn’t even decide on wording for a ballot referendum that was intended to let the council avoid responsibility for making its own decision about the airport. Back in May, the council instead voted to let city residents decide for themselves whether they prefer to use $2 million to keep the airport as it is until at least 2025, or whether they would be willing to accept $13.5 million in available federal funding in order to improve and expand the airport at a total cost of $15.1 million.

This had the effect of getting the council members off the hook for making a tough decision, but oddly enough didn’t even include the option most ballyhooed in advance of the meeting — shutting down the airport altogether.

That made us, and others in the public, wonder just what was going on — and whether some secret agenda was being served. Maybe so, or maybe not, but it wasn’t until this week when one of the council members said what was prominently on our mind.

Jim Atkinson summed up the key idea of good government when he challenged Mayor Tammi Fisher to let the council vote one more time on the future of the airport — to make its own tough decision rather than punting and waiting to see which way the public runs with the ball.

“I think that’s what the voting public votes us in for,” said Atkinson. “To make these decisions, make the wise decisions and go forward.”

Amen to that. Maybe that philosophy is why Atkinson has been repeatedly re-elected since he started to serve on the council in 1988. If we can’t count on the nine people who are best educated on the airport to make a decision about its future, then what exactly can we count on them for?

As was discussed at Monday’s meeting, the public would get a ballot referendum with a scant 100 words to describe the status of the airport, and then 25 words to describe each of the two options being considered. Considering the complexity of the issue, it would be impossible to expect voters to fully comprehend the significance of their vote for either option.

On the other hand, maybe we can’t expect that level of comprehension from the council either. For instance, at Monday’s meeting it was revealed that the proposed language for expanding the airport included up to $13.5 million in federal funds plus a cost to local taxpayers of $2.6 million. Unfortunately that adds up to $1 million more than the actual cost of the airport itself. Could someone tell us where that missing million is going?

Not at this time, but the city apparently would like to know the same thing and is exploring why the numbers don’t add up. Well, that’s comforting at least.

We’ve said before that in our opinion the city would be well served to expand and improve the airport to capitalize on our regional history as an aviation center and to improve opportunities for economic growth in the future.

But even if the council voted to shut the airport tomorrow, at least we would know that our elected officials were doing their job — instead of expecting the voters to do it for them.