Downtown business group supports park measures

Downtown commercial property owners largely offered support for Kalispell’s forthcoming park ordinances during a Business Improvement District meeting Thursday, but said more work remains ahead.

Property and business owners represented a large portion of the residents complaining about the presence of homeless people and providing reports to the city of disturbing or illegal behavior in Kalispell’s downtown Depot Park gazebo.

The complaints prompted the city to close the structure last month and pursue a package of ordinances that restrict the amount of an individual's personal property allowed in public parks, ban the erection of structures there and limit the time a person could stay under a covered park facility, such as a gazebo, without a permit.

Kalispell Chamber of Commerce President Lorraine Clarno called the ordinances critical for preserving the parks for public use, but not a solution for the city’s growing homeless population.

“I’m so proud of the City Council,” Clarno said. But she also described the ordinances as only “kicking the can down the road.”

“We’re not fixing any problem, we’re just moving it,” said Gabe Mariman, owner of Main Street’s Bias Brewing.

Chamber employees, whose office overlooks the gazebo, reported seeing fewer homeless people around the park, and have called the police only twice since officials closed the structure, according to Clarno.

“We moved the problem,” she said.

Clarno and her team have been finding human waste and needles as warmer temperatures melt snow in the park, prompting the chamber to buy sharps disposal containers.

Business Improvement District Executive Director Pam Carbonari said that more action is needed to keep the downtown attractive for business owners and their customers.

“This is going to grow,” Carbonari predicted of homelessness in the downtown area. “If we don’t show strength, businesses will leave downtown.”

Board member Kisa Davison, owner of Straight Blast Gym, said she has informed employees to ask homeless people seeking warmth or a restroom to leave, and has given them the police non-emergency dispatch number to call. Davison wanted to share that information with other businesses as a flier or postcard, perhaps written in conjunction with the Kalispell Police Department.

Other initiatives proposed at the meeting included hiring private security to patrol the downtown core area and expanded security camera surveillance with a matching financing scheme if business owners agreed to share the footage with law enforcement.

Members of the public speaking at City Council’s Jan. 23 work session mentioned a desire for a public restroom facility to lessen the clean up being done by police, chamber employees and others. Davison pointed out that managing the existing Depot Park restrooms became a problem last summer, with homeless people misusing and sleeping inside them, making closing the facilities for the evening difficult.

Attendees at Thursday’s meeting felt that any solution started with the county and state funding behavioral health and substance abuse treatment programs.

“We need to ask our commissioners where our public health dollars are,” Clarno said.

Mariman also reported at the meeting that the recent Frosty the Brewfest event was a fundraising success for local nonprofit Samaritan House, with 40% of over $25,000 raised being donated directly to the homeless shelter.

Council approved the ordinances Monday and if they are OK’d at a second reading at their next meeting, would go on the books 30 days later.

Reporter Adrian Knowler can be reached at 758-4407 or aknowler@dailyinterlake.com.