Newest parking compromise runs into opposition

The debate over parking around Flathead High School has been lengthy, emotional and at times vitriolic.

Appeals by residents to the Kalispell City Council have touched on a number of perceived impacts beyond just student parking. Rental properties, emergency response and unruly teens have all been brought up in comments. On June 22, one woman said that the behavior led her to believe that “God has been turned off” among students.

It all stemmed from a dense parking situation in the west-side neighborhood. And with proposed parking regulations on the table, some residents still are holding out for a full ban on student parking.

It has become a divisive issue for officials and residents.

“If you go with this plan, there will definitely be litigation,” Karlene Osorio-Kohr, a west-side Kalispell resident and Planning Board member, said on June 22.

Osorio-Kohr has led the charge to push student parking outside a 25-block area around Flathead High. She has been active in a resident group that has been discussing the parking situation for more than a year.

She has accused school officials of “hijacking” the process for a more favorable plan for students.

“This was really something where you should have separated the school’s problems from the residents’ problems,” she said.

The proposal in front of the council has been billed as a new compromise.

It offers free parking permits to residents and allows students to purchase permits for a 15-block area. In addition, students would only be able to park on one side of each road.

Council member Rod Kuntz helped broker the proposal with school officials. It’s a change in perspective from Osorio-Kohr in that he sees the school as another property owner, with students who are required to get to school.

“Any city official’s job is not to solve one person’s problem,” Kuntz said on Tuesday. “It’s to solve a community’s problem. And the proposal that I have on the table does solve the community’s problem.”

Kuntz has stepped down from voting on this matter to work with residents in his Ward 3 district. The other council member from that ward, Jim Atkinson, has voiced support for the measure.

Proponents say the new proposal does a couple of things. First, it gives relief to the residents in addition to the on-site parking spaces that the school has approved. Second, it puts the cost burden on students rather than residents.

Costs for the signs alone for a parking district could run as high as $20,000.

“I really think there’s promise in a compromise,” Kuntz said.

The sharpest opponents want students out.

“This is a parking district for the residents, so I do not want staff and students buying permits,” area resident Donna Smith said on June 22. “The students are the ones that are causing the problem. I’m hoping that the school district and Flathead will still do what needs to be done to get the vehicles off the streets.”

Osorio-Kohr has referred to a 1993 Montana Supreme Court decision that affirmed the city of Missoula’s parking district around the University of Montana. Representatives for university students started a lawsuit after a resident-only district was created.

In the opinion, Chief Justice Jean A. Turnage wrote that Missoula “has a legitimate interest in assuring homeowners ample parking space for themselves and their guests.”

But the opinion didn’t require cities to do so or give parameters on what a municipal parking district would look like.

“There’s nothing in the opinion that says municipalities have an obligation to create a parking district,” Kalispell City Attorney Charlie Harball said.

The current proposal would free up roughly half of the 237 off-street spaces for residents in a 15-block area. A previous study said that the school district is short 227 parking spaces for its students and staffers at Elrod Elementary and Flathead High.

But for some residents whose curbs are occupied throughout the school year, it’s time to clean house.

“We’re not saying they can’t park on a city street,” Marta Moore said at a council session. “Don’t park every day in front of my house.”

Reporter Matt Hudson may be reached at 758-4459 or by email at mhudson@dailyinterlake.com.