Forum issues: taxes, forests, communism

A dozen people attended a forum Tuesday featuring five of the seven Republican candidates for the District 1 Flathead County commissioner spot.

Candidates Kirk Gentry, Mike Shepard, Doug Adams, Ben Stormes and Cal Scott participated; Glenn Kolodejchuk and Rod Bernhardson did not.

In the June 5 primary election, voters will select one Republican to advance to the Nov. 6 general election to face Democrat Gil Jordan. All county voters vote for commissioners in all districts, not just the district a voter lives in.

The District 1 seat is a two-year position to complete the term of the late Jim Dupont.

Voters this year also are electing a commissioner in District 3 to a standard six-year term, replacing retiring Commissioner Dale Lauman.

Different questions were posed to candidates, and in some cases only one person responded to a particular question from Marc Rold, president of the host Flathead Business and Industry Association.

Shepard, Adams and Stormes were asked how to deal with lost funding in a revenue-neutral way if the state’s business equipment tax were eliminated.

Shepard said he and other members of the Columbia Falls City Council have dealt with the loss of tax revenues by reducing the city staff, not increasing taxes.

The solution to such a revenue loss, he said, is creating jobs, especially in the timber industry.

“We need to band together and get the forests back to work,” Shepard said.

Stormes said federal agencies “have closed the Treasure State” and “taken away our resources.”

The way to stop those actions from occurring, he said, is to follow the mandated coordination process that “makes the federal government negotiate in good faith.”

“The idea is to close our forests and natural resources and put us all in cities,” he said. “The problem isn’t in Washington, it’s in Helena and is passed on to us” and is all based on “ridiculous science.”

Adams said commissioners need to find cost savings or reduce expenses to offset any reduction in tax receipts.

While acknowledging that some people would say raising taxes is another option, Adams said he wouldn’t advocate for that.  

Adams is not a fan of the business equipment tax.

“The tax is wrong. It’s unmerited. It’s not good for business. It should be eliminated,” he said.

The fact that Montana taxes people the way it does “is absolutely unconscionable,” he said.

“Unless you’re a communist, there’s no way you can be in favor of it,” Adams said.

Gentry was asked how the economy and jobs could be improved.

Regulations can be streamlined, he replied. Rather than making people who want to open a new business jump through hoops, he said the county should respond with a helpful attitude. He suggested checklists identifying what someone has to do in order to open a new business be created by county officials.

Government should help business owners, “not just tell us what we can’t do,” he said.

Gentry also said rules that can’t be justified by reason should be discarded.

Answering a question about how to motivate county employees to have breakthrough results without breaking the county budget, Scott said commissioners should step outside the box.

Commissioners should have oversight of all county departments, elected officials and the appointed boards, he said, and should clarify the responsibilities of all those entities.

Commissioners also need to listen to what the needs are, Scott said.

Responding to another question, Adams said if the federal government reduces its payment in lieu of taxes allocations to local governments, then those local governments should be given property in an amount equal to the funding that they are losing.

Local governments could sell that land and use the proceeds to offset the lost payments.

The federal government should have the same responsibility to pay taxes as private landowners would have to pay, Adams said.

Regarding representation in the Whitefish “doughnut” area, Shepard said Whitefish voters need to elect City Council members “who follow the law” and “don’t have their own agenda.”

Flathead County had oversight of the doughnut for years, he said, and things worked fine. When jurisdiction is returned to the county, county officials need to work with the doughnut residents, the city-county planning board and within the neighborhood plans and “follow the letter of the law,” he said.

Stormes was asked what he would do to resolve disputes outside of court.

“Follow the law” was his response. County officials need to “stop messing around and letting the federal and state government come in here and take away our resources.”

He said many of the lawsuits the county faces come from people not following the law. If the coordination process was implemented, then federal officials would have to “sit down with us on an even basis and negotiate,” he said.

Responding to a question about restrictions placed on the use of private property, Gentry said people should have the right to use their property as they wish, as long as the uses are responsible and respectful of their neighbors.

Property owners must look at what’s in place in an area, too, he said, and “be sensible and responsible” about what may exist next door to land they plan to buy.

Scott said the commissioners don’t have a lot to do regarding the water compact between the state and the Salish and Kootenai tribes except lobbying through statewide groups.

“We Montanans own the water and we regulate what happens to it,” he said, because the state constitution says Montana owns the water although a treaty gives the water to the reservation.

Adams said he possesses humility and the ability to compromise when necessary, in response to a question about his strongest attribute.

He also said in his private business he has learned that when he “treats people right,” he’s gained their loyalty.

Adams said he would bring his solutions-oriented and deliberate approaches to the commissioner job.