Council nixes airport statement

Kalispell voters looking for more guidance about an increasingly controversial, convoluted and combative airport referendum won’t get it from the Kalispell City Council — at least not in the form of an official “statement of record.”

The statement would have outlined what a vote for or against the referendum means and told people where they can get accurate information about a proposed airport upgrade through the federal Airport Improvement Program.

The City Council narrowly passed a resolution to proceed with the proposed airport upgrade 5-4 last year, a controversial decision voters will either repeal or uphold in November.

However, council members on Monday unanimously rejected a draft statement of record City Manager Doug Russell prepared at their request. Jim Atkinson and Phil Guiffrida III were not present for the vote, one of the only airport-related votes council members have agreed upon for some time.

“I believe the best course we can do is not put anything out there,” council member Bob Hafferman said about the statement, in part because its language did not match exactly language voters will see on ballots. “There’s enough information, misinformation and suppositions and everything else going on.”

Hafferman added: “Let’s go ahead and let the thing play out. There’s been plenty of discussion about it, and I don’t want to throw more confusion in.”

Council member Tim Kluesner questioned adopting a statement that directs voters looking for information to the master plan update and airport layout plan Stelling Engineers prepared for the city. Not everything in the master plan update is accurate, Kluesner asserted. He pointed to two claims in a news analysis in Sunday’s Daily Inter Lake as proof.

That article said it’s not true the airport upgrade’s $16.1 million total estimated development cost includes only 5 percent for contingencies, as was claimed during a recent Chamber of Commerce forum on the airport. The master plan update lists a 20 percent contingency — about $2.4 million — in a table outlining components of the total development cost estimate.

But Kluesner pointed to a sentence on page 142 in the master plan that says, “The cost estimates presented in this chapter have been increased by five percent to allow for contingencies that may arise on the project.”

Kluesner said he talked to Jeff Walla of Stelling Engineers about that discrepancy and was told it was a typographical error. “What other errors are in this report? Are we directing people to something that wasn’t true?” Kluesner asked.

Contacted on Tuesday, Walla defended the accuracy of the master plan update.

“People are taking things out of context, but there are no flaws in the master plan. I can’t guarantee that it’s a perfect document, but it has been thoroughly reviewed and commented on by the Federal Aviation Administration and we have strong confidence in the data and the recommendation,” said Walla, who did not attend Monday’s meeting.

According to Walla, the 5 percent contingency figure people are pulling from the report relates to a 20-year capital improvement plan for the proposed airport upgrade.

That plan is not directly related to the estimated development cost for the project outlined in a separate chapter. Rather, it’s a planning tool to try to arrange and plan cash inflows and outflows and federal reimbursements and expenditures.

“The bottom line is the estimated development cost is $16.1 million with 20 percent contingency. The capital improvement plan is a tool to show how things can cash flow over 20 years,” Walla said, and that is where the 5 percent contingency is used.

 Those are two different tools, Walla said, stressing that they are both intended as conservative planning level estimates “that will have to get more refined as the project gets much closer.”

Kluesner also brought up the issue of the light towers at Legends Stadium.

Sunday’s article noted that the light towers don’t need to be lowered for the proposed airport upgrade.

They don’t.

But Kluesner pointed to a sentence on page 87 of the master plan update that says they do — a point he said was later retracted in a 15-page question-and-answer publication prepared for the City Council and posted on the city website but never amended in the actual master plan.

“So if we’re going to give people the right information or [tell them] where to go to find the right information, one, we better make sure it’s there, and two, we better make sure the information is correct. So when that information is quoted and given out to the general public by any of us council members or by the media, it is correct. That’s the issue I have,” Kluesner said.

Walla said the discussion of the stadium light towers on page 87 is being taken out of context in the current discussion. He said the towers are a problem when considered with the airport’s existing configuration — but not with the proposed airport upgrade.

 “When you shift the runway south and rotate it, that [problem] goes away. It’s an issue under the current alignment of the runway.”

Walla added that no comment about the light towers has ever been retracted.

Mayor Tammi Fisher said she wants to see the City Council get out of the issue.

“I think we spoke, we spoke again and we spoke a third time. We spoke all we could have spoken,” Fisher said. She added that she’s “a little disappointed” there are some flaws in a $97,000 master plan update adopted by the City Council. “And those are flaws I think some people would find significant, especially when you’re talking about contingency [figures]. That is a significant amount of money and some pretty significant facts.”

Council member Jeff Zauner applauded Russell’s attempt to craft a workable statement of record but questioned if it’s needed. There’s a lot of inaccurate information being discussed by people on both sides of the airport upgrade, he said.

“I think this has been such a big topic in our valley whether you’re for it or against it. People are going to educate themselves, I hope at least, because it’s a huge decision, and get information whether it’s on the website or through calling us and asking us questions or getting involved to make the educated vote that really needs to be made,” Zauner said.

Council member Kari Gabriel hopes that’s what happens. But she’s not sure most people will have the time to do that.

“I’m not happy with us doing nothing, but I’m not happy with us doing this, either,” Gabriel said about the statement of record. “I’m disappointed we can’t put something out that helps clarify what people will be voting for,” she said, adding: “I guess I’m just disappointed in this process.”

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