School land deal gets voters' OK

Voters on Tuesday by a 3-to-1 margin approved a ballot issue that allows Kalispell Public Schools to purchase land for a future elementary school site.

The land acquisition involves a property exchange of two adjacent parcels, each approximately 25 acres, south of town on Airport Road.

The total cost of the transaction is not to exceed $420,000. The transaction will be funded using available district money in an interlocal fund and miscellaneous elementary programs. The land purchase will not affect tax rates.

Once the transaction is completed, the next step is to get the land annexed into the city, according to Kalispell Public Schools Superintendent Mark Flatau.

Flatau said 20- to 25-acre tracts of land are scarce within the district and the land purchase is a move to plan ahead for continued growth primarily at the kindergarten through eighth-grade level.

Flatau said the district is looking at a three- to five-year time frame to discuss construction of a new school building.