Candidate for Columbia Falls City Council Kelly (Hamilton) King

Kelly (Hamilton) King is seeking her first election to the Columbia Falls City Council.

King, 51, was appointed to the council in September 2022 after longtime councilman Doug Karper resigned as he moved out of town. King has since gotten married, but when she registered to run for election her legal name was still Hamilton, so that’s how she’ll appear on the ballot.

King is a lifelong resident and graduated from Columbia Falls in 1990. She is married to Eric King, an electrician at Weyerhaeuser. She has two grown daughters, Shonda and Kasy, as well as two stepchildren, Jacob King and Cassandra Wise and five grandchildren.

King is the director of the Flathead Valley Toys for Tots program and works in asset protection in Walmart, which involves tracking down and catching shoplifters.

The Toys for Tots program under her leadership has been an extremely successful event, gathering thousands of toys for underserved youth in the Flathead Valley.

She said she’s running because “I think it’s important we have an array of opinions on council,” she said. “I want to know what’s going on and be a part of it.”

King began attending council meetings even before being appointed to Council.

“I didn’t want to be a person complaining without having details,” she said.

She comes from a family of volunteers. Her father, Rob Hedstrom, was a volunteer Columbia Falls firefighter and was also fire chief years ago.

She said she supports the city’s 3% resort tax, noting it draws revenue from visitors and helps pay for city services like fire and police personnel and equipment.

“If (visitors) are coming here, they can pay,” she said.

On growth and housing, she said it’s important to take each project on its merits.

“I don’t believe there’s a blanket policy for every subdivision that comes in,” she said.

Though Columbia Falls doesn’t have a large homeless situation like Kalispell, she has concerns about the homeless population and says she stays in touch with the needs of the United Way and the warming shelter in Kalispell.

She says she sees the problem at her job in Walmart and she helps with fundraising and simply being a human to the homeless.

On the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. cleanup, she says she has concerns about it and wants to see it monitored by a third party — not just the company and the EPA.

On the subject of growth, she notes it's inevitable, but she said it’s also important for the community to “maintain its core values and treat each other with respect.”

She says she’s encouraged by the growth in downtown and would like to see the city look at what it can do further inside the city limits.

She noted in 2008 Nucleus Avenue was largely unused buildings and in decline.

“We don’t have a ghost town anymore,” she said.

On the pit to park she said she’d love to see a dog park in Columbia Falls. The city has long eyed the land for a dog park, but it never came to fruition.