Who hijacked the west-side parking plan?

Clearly, there is no other Kalispell neighborhood with the same kind of parking problems seen in the neighborhood around Flathead High School.

In discussion with my neighbors, there is a sense that the City Council wishes to table the subject or will not vote for any kind of residential district parking plan. They tell me they have been told: If they don’t agree to a recently brokered “new proposal” for a residential parking district allowing students and teachers to purchase parking permits in their neighborhood — they will get nothing from this city council.

I have never heard of a residential parking district allowing the transient population that is causing the problem to purchase parking permits. The school has made it clear, according to Councilman Rod Kuntz, who has had one-on-one negotiations with the school district, it has no monies for signage for the residential parking district. Signage is, by far, the greatest cost factor in the creation of a residential parking district. Yet, the school district insists it must have parking permits and can park on one side of each street and each avenue in the residential parking district. Doesn’t that fly in the face of the definition of a “residential parking district?”

The Montana Supreme Court ruling was very clear in its distinction between residents’ rights and the rights of a transient population when the Associated Students of the University of Montana sued the city of Missoula. The court ruled in favor of the residents and the city of Missoula. Further, the court determined non-residents were not discriminated against when, by ordinance, they were NOT allowed to purchase parking permits in the Missoula residential parking district. In this case, non-residents were the Associated Students of the University of Montana.

Clearly, it is not the city’s responsibility to solve the school’s parking problem but it is the city’s responsibility to solve its residents’ parking problem.

At the last regular City Council meeting, residents insisted streets (not just avenues) must be part of the plan. The plan before City Council was not the plan the neighbors bought into and was not the “original plan” they had worked upon for two years. They had worked in committees with staff from the district and school principals. When some school officials spoke against the plan and asserted no prior knowledge of it, it seemed the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing in the school district. These school officials insisted on re-negotiating the “original plan” and some of the disheartened neighbors turned away from the process. Others were turned away from participating in these negotiations. It was no longer an open process. It was hijacked. It appeared “appeasing the school” was now necessary in order for any residential parking district to exist. But the Montana Supreme Court ruling does not require a school’s approval for a city to enact a residential parking district.

The City Council set aside the negotiated plan asking for all information about the “original plan.” Members of the residential parking district committee responded, sending their two years of work on the “original plan” to them.

At a recent workshop session, the City Council abdicated its role and allowed one of its members to negotiate with the school district. Now, there is another brand-new parking proposal — again, not created in the light of a public meeting or gathering but in private meetings between Mr. Kuntz and the school district. This is the plan allowing students and staff to purchase permits and park on one side of each avenue and each street, and the school district to not provide any monies for signage. I am not certain what other new wrinkles will be tossed in, but I cannot understand what one member of this council could do that this council, as a whole, could not do, in the presence of the public.

I am requesting the City Council do its job. Craft an ordinance, in front of the people, to solve the parking problem for the residents of the proposed west-side residential parking district by including the streets and the avenues, by limiting parking permits only to the residents and by determining a fiscally sound plan to address the costs. City Council can design an ordinance fulfilling the residents’ parking needs and their legal rights as upheld by the Montana Supreme Court ruling.

Let the school solve its own parking problem and stop imposing its will on this neighborhood and this process.