LETTER: City airport should be allowed to stay

As a resident of South Kalispell, I feel the need to comment on the city airport issue. I have lived about 12 blocks east of the City Airport since buying this house in 1999. I don’t own an airplane, am not a pilot, nor have I ever had any business with anyone there. I live directly under the glide path for those airplanes landing from the east. And I LOVE that the airport is where it is.

I get FAR more noise from the hot rodders and bike stunters, the Harleys and the 18-wheelers than I do from the airport. From April through October, EVERY night it is the same noise from U.S. 93, from the Courthouse all the way down to Four Corners. Every so often, we deal with a helicopter running up its engines, or a modified plane taking off. You know what? I bought this place knowing the airport was there, but that highway noise? That’s fairly recent, directly attributable to the growth in our valley. Will we re-route Highway 93? Oh, wait, that’s right, the BYPASS was going to take care of that …

As for the property itself, what else might it possibly be used for? Between the highway noise, the poor air quality from the treatment plant, the dust and noise from the gravel and wrecking yards and the poor soil, what else will it be suited for? More ballfields? Shopping centers? City/county warehouses? Whatever it is, the lights will probably be too bright and the dark-skies contingent won’t like that either!

I live in the city of Kalispell, and have owned two properties here, both in the south end of town. I hear cars and trucks, and see lights. I deal with barking dogs and people mowing lawns. If everyone was honest, the noise factor is negligible. The safety risk is also negligible. So what is left? What it costs us to fund the airport? That too few people USE the airport?

I don’t have kids in school anymore, yet I still pay school taxes. Thousands of you are automatically paying state parks fees when you register your automobiles, yet never use a state park. I have been levied and taxed for pools and parks, and sidewalks I never see. There are hundreds of projects that COST the city and the county money that benefit only a small segment of society, so that argument doesn’t do it for me. But, if that IS the argument, that it benefits too FEW, you better look at your own pet projects that have been funded by ALL.

The Kalispell airport has been where it is for a long, long time. It has served this city and this county through good times and bad. It is as appropriate now as it ever has been, and all that is changing is the people around it. Too bad. It was there when we moved in, and there it should be allowed to stay.

—Mike Howe, Kalispell