Airport issue to go to voters

The Kalispell City Council had its say. Now, Kalispell voters will decide whether or not Kalispell City Airport is upgraded through the federal Airport Improvement Program.

A petition drive that concluded Friday successfully put the airport issue to a public vote.

Chad Graham and volunteers turned in more than the 1,759 valid voter signatures — 15 percent of the electorate — needed to put a proposed airport upgrade on hold and on the ballot.

“What we’ve accomplished is we’ve given that decision back to the city voter, who owns that land, to decide if they want to keep the airport in its current footprint or expand it,” Graham said.

A total of 2,448 signatures were turned in. 

Of those, 1,802 were certified as valid registered Kalispell voters, according to Monica Eisenzimer, an election supervisor with the Flathead County Election Department.

That means an airport referendum must be held by November 2013 at the latest.

It would ask Kalispell voters to either reject or affirm the City Council’s 5-4 decision in July to upgrade the airport to B-II design standards through the Airport Improvement Program.

Signatures were turned in early enough to halt any more City Council action on the upgrade until it can be rejected or approved by voters.

The outcome starts what is bound to be a contentious campaign fight between people who support the upgrade and people who oppose it.

Graham said the signature drive he spearheaded to put the airport on the ballot is not “anti-airport.”

“I want the airport to be able to stay where it’s at, in its current form. But it has to be able to pay its own way just like any other enterprise fund in the city,” Graham said.

Graham added that his push is just to let voters decide the airport’s future.

“We stopped the City Council from moving forward on this until the voters can have their say. Who knows, maybe they will say they want the expansion. I don’t think they will, but that’s a year from now.”

Scott Richardson, president of Kalispell’s Airport Advisory Board, hopes voters see the value of the upgrade, which has been on the table as the recommended course of action since 1999.

The estimated $16 million upgrade would do the most for the 84-year-old airport in terms of improving safety, reducing noise and allowing it to grow as an economic asset, Richardson said.

Money from the federal Airport Improvement Program would pay for up to 90 percent of the upgrade’s cost, reimburse Kalispell for nearly $3 million already spent on land and airport improvements related to the upgrade, and provide $150,000 a year for maintenance going forward.

Without the upgrade, a backlog of repairs falls entirely on the city and the small general aviation airport. So would future maintenance and operational costs.

“It’s not just me saying this is a great thing,” Richardson said of the proposed upgrade.

“It’s coming from folks who live, eat and breathe aviation safety and planning. FAA approved it and concurs. Several generations of engineers have gone through this and come up with an identical response. These are people in the business of making sure we have safe aviation facilities, not just a handful of pilots.”

THE SIGNATURE drive’s success means Kalispell City Council members have some choices to make, including when to hold the referendum, City Attorney Charlie Harball said.

“As it is now, the election could be no later than the general election of November 2013. They could do it sooner if they wanted to. They could do that at any time,” Harball said.

A majority of the nine-member council is up for re-election in November 2013: Mayor Tammi Fisher, Bob Hafferman, Tim Kluesner, Jeff Zauner and Jim Atkinson.

“We have council members on both sides of this issue up for re-election,” Harball said. “Do they want to be on the ballot at the same time as the airport? They could say they want to do it sooner.”  

Holding a special election would cost money, but keep a decades-old issue from stagnating for another year without resolution. And the cost may be minor in the grand scheme of things.

“City Council can have [the referendum] whenever they want to,” Graham said.

“That would have to be paid for. But they’re spending an awful lot of money on stuff at the airport over and above that. So the amount of money they would have to spend to do that is not a whole lot when you consider everything else going on.”

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