Letters to the editor March 5

Impact fees

Regarding the upcoming public safety levy vote, I urge everyone to look up the Daily Inter Lake editorial of Aug. 23, 2023 “Kalispell misses the mark on impact fees.” It outlines the results of the poor decision to lower impact fees three years ago. 

I believe the city should restore the impact fees to the previous higher levels before asking anyone to vote for the levy which would increase already too high property taxes. The time to reverse course on impact fees is now.

Appropriate fees for land development are extremely important to manage the public service costs associated with growth.

We should  also be asking our county officials what new taxes are on the horizon due the growth outside the city and should there be higher fees to cover the services this growth demands.

Our city, our county and our state are failing us in the unrelenting increases in property taxes.

— Jon Mawell, Kalispell

Tester’s values

Well, it’s “schmoozing” season again for Sen. Jon Tester. Time to fool Montanans once again that he’s just a plain old Montana moderate and farmer/rancher; instead of the woke, hypocritical, spend-happy, Schumer-lap-sitter that he has shown himself to be over the past 12 plus years.

Where were you, Jon, when you could have saved thousands of jobs and the Keystone pipeline (easily)? And where do you stand now, by not supporting Montana’s vital coal, oil and gas industries?

Where were you and are you as the Biden admininstration opened wide the southern border, allowing in millions of illegals, drug cartels, human trafficking, and the meth and fentanyl which is now poisoning Montana kids?

Where were you when the left and LGBTQ hosted a drag show at a Malstrom Air Force base?

Where did you stand during the 2020-21 carnage of antifa and BLM riots; while you now pretend to promote law and order?

Where are you now on promoting the values which most Montanans cherish, like freedom from overreaching government, Christian principles, sane fiscal policy, and the pure common sense that (still) makes Montana a great place to live?

I’ve followed your every move, statement and Senate vote since 2012; and your obvious hypocrisy in pretending to support Montana values is just breathtaking.

— Reed L Yeater, Polson