OPINION: Time to find a scapegoat for Whitefish city hall project?

The Whitefish City Hall project was rammed down the taxpayers’ throats with a quick demolition of the old building before the taxpayers figured out what was happening but hopefully after they forgot about the recent one-cent increase in the sales tax.

Meanwhile, the City Council dithered about the aesthetics of this monument to government.

Then enter the demolition crews. Voila! A “legacy” project is born. Some legacy. Councilman Sweeney, recently re-elected, complained he had received “a fire hose of bad information.” And who, pray tell, was at the nozzle end of the firehose? And why didn’t council turn off the spigot and get the information they needed before needlessly rushing to get the job started? Isn’t that why they were elected?

Guess we’ll have to wait and see as the drama unfolds.

But I suspect that ere long a suitable scapegoat will be found and it won’t be the folks on the City Council. But if I were Chuck Stearns, I think I’d upgrade my resume and look for another city that wants to spend a lot of the taxpayers’ money on “legacy” projects.

Appel is a resident of Whitefish.