EDITORIAL: Back to drawing board for 911 funding

Given the amount of confusion that accompanied Flathead County’s proposed E-911 special district, it’s not surprising the effort was rejected by property owners.

The countywide tax district that was designed to raise $1.9 million annually for ongoing upgrades and maintenance to the consolidated 911 dispatch center was flawed on a couple of levels. Even our county commissioners acknowledged problems when they voted this week to terminate the special district process.

First, the state law Flathead County used to establish the district is a confusing law. It required that assessment notices sent to property owners “must specify that if [the protest form] is not returned, the owner’s lack of action must be construed as support of the creation of the special district.”

A Whitefish couple who recently wrote to the Inter Lake summed up the confusion well: “Failure to return the ballot is considered an affirmative vote. What kind of democracy is this? Everyone knows about low voter participation. ... What’s up when you are asked to vote against something and failure to do so is considered a yes vote?”

And former state Rep. Derek Skees hit the nail on the head when he told the commissioners “the whole technique was designed to pass an initiative on confusion.”

Another big problem with the proposed tax district was a number of inequities in the tax assessments. For example, all contractors and construction companies were lumped into one category and would have paid the same amount of tax, whether they were a home-based contractor or one of the county’s biggest construction firms. Storage unit owners complained about the same inequity.

The commissioners knew the assessments needed to be tweaked but were advised by the County Attorney’s Office to wait until the protest deadline had passed.

Now the commissioners must decide how to move forward with finding money to pay for much-needed technology upgrades at the 911 center. Quite frankly, they’re having to deal with a process that was short-sighted from the get-go. When voters approved a $6.9 million bond to build the center in 2008, only $800,000 was set aside for minimal improvements and that pot of money is almost empty. There never was a concrete plan for the ongoing maintenance of the center.

There’s no political will to put the matter on an election ballot any time soon, but there is a promise to further study the matter. Let’s hope that study happens sooner rather than later.

A ballot measure for 911 funding last year failed by only 10 votes, and in the latest proposal 9,527 of nearly 66,000 assessment notices for the special district were returned as protests. Those results indicate the majority of county residents are willing to financially support the 911 center. It’s just a matter of presenting a funding scenario that isn’t exorbitant and is fair to everyone.