Clock ticking on land easement

Kalispell has accepted the terms the state of Montana offered for Kidsports and the city to buy a $2.3 million permanent easement for the youth athletic complex developed on school trust land in north Kalispell.

Kalispell City Council members approved the terms Monday.

“This has nothing to do with the funding of the easement,” Kalispell City Manager Doug Russell told the council.

“But [it] sets out a five-year time frame where the city and Kidsports can partner in some fashion to actually acquire the easement.”

The terms were hashed out through several years of negotiations between the city, Kidsports and the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

The deal was approved in mid-October by the State Land Board, a group of elected officials that oversees management of Montana’s school trust lands.

This gives Kidsports or potentially the city of Kalispell up to five years to raise the money needed and buy the permanent easement at a cost of about $2.3 million.

Kidsports has leased 136 acres of school trust land through the city of Kalispell since 1996. This permanent easement would be for 123 acres of land that appraised this summer at $18,515 an acre.

Without the easement, Kidsports faces a mandatory mid-lease reappraisal in 2016 that threatens to double or triple its annual lease payment.

City Council members have discussed paying for all or part of the easement’s cost by the end of this year.

They will consider that idea again at a work session on Monday, Nov. 30.

IN OTHER business, the City Council voted 7-1 to expand the West Side Tax Increment Financing District to include 364 acres of land that’s being targeted for redevelopment in the Kalispell Core Area Revitalization Plan.

Council member Bob Hafferman voted against the expansion.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.