Problem can't stay parked any longer

It’s abundantly clear that there are no easy answers when it comes  to the parking problem around Flathead High School and Elrod Elementary School.

But it’s also clear that School District 5 needs to step forward with more than it has in the past to alleviate the problem. And it’s encouraging that district administrators have signaled that they intend to do just that.

What has elevated this subject to a much higher profile is a proposal developed by people who live in the school neighborhoods that would establish a paid permit parking district. The proposal has made its way to the city’s planning process, making it a front-burner issue for the city and the school district.

People living in the neighborhoods can’t be ignored, partly because they have a degree of legal leverage as the result of a Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for the state’s first parking district around the University of Montana in Missoula. The ruling boiled down to this: The property rights of residents trumped the rights of university students to have convenient parking around campus.

In Kalispell, residents have long complained about the parking problem, but now they have made it clear that maintaining the status quo is an untenable consideration. The main problem is that residents often can’t find parking near their own homes; but there are a host of other problems such as littering, inconsiderate parking, petty crime and other general mischief.

But the school district, parents and students are justifiably concerned about a parking district having a negative impact on attendance and causing safety issues for students having to park far from school. And it seems there’s some merit to the argument that the district would push the parking problems further away from the schools, changing the problem rather than solving it.

This is a problem, however, that must be addressed, and no stone should be left unturned in finding solutions. Some ideas include a tax increment finance district to raise money for gradually providing more parking around the schools, making use of every square foot of potential parking at the high school, creating parking farther from the school with a regular shuttle service, and changing school policies in a way that would limit students from driving or give them incentives to avoid driving.

Arguments can be made for or against all of those suggestions, but the time has come for those debates to get underway.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.