Letters to the editor March 10

Brownfields grants

When my wife and I began our careers in the Flathead Valley 30 years ago, we were lucky enough to buy a house.

The house — one bedroom, one bath — cost us less than $50,000. That house today is posted on Zillow for $350,000. That’s a 700% increase. Local salaries have not come close to keeping up. This is our housing crisis in a nutshell.

Every family should be able to afford a roof over their head. Where will working class people live?

There’s no easy answer. But our housing situation got a shot in the arm thanks to a federal EPA grant of $500,000 awarded to the Montana West Economic Development Foundation.

This grant is dedicated to the assessment, cleanup, and restoration of brownfield sites– areas that pose challenges for development due to the presence of harmful substances. 

Restoring these sites opens opportunities to transform these properties into much-needed housing, fostering downtown growth, and strengthening the heart of our cities. 

Wisher’s Auto Recycling in Kalispell, the old Evergreen Kmart, the Glacier Gateway School Buildings, and Larry’s Post and Pole in Columbia Falls have been identified as potential sites for conversion into affordable housing, as well as community recreation areas and senior housing. Let’s welcome these efforts for not only addressing environmental concerns, but also promising solutions for crucial housing needs and encouraging economic growth.

This grant was made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It represents the largest sum of money ever awarded by the EPA’s Brownfields Grant programs. Nice work, Montana West.   

    The Flathead Valley should always be a place where young couples can live out their dreams. If we work together, it can be.

— Ben Long, Kalispell

Echo chamber

The Flathead Valley is becoming unaffordable. When my own grandkids come along, I want to believe they’ll be able to grow up here. The likelihood is low.

I work for a local manufacturer headquartered in House District 8. I frequently make the case that our many efforts to reduce cost of living must be joined by efforts to raise median wages, something manufacturing tends to do that like no other sector.

But I’m deeply concerned about our collective resolve in Northwest Montana. Making the Flathead more affordable will be hard. Really, really hard. It will only come with our willfulness in taking many small steps. Making tough choices. Weathering a lot of squalls as we go.

The biggest threat to that steady resolve is the willingness of too many decision makers to score points on each other instead of making the hard decisions in the face of pressure, most especially pressure from within one’s own party.

The condition where everyone innately agrees on everything to avoid trouble is called the echo chamber, and it is a funerary cell for ideas that could have been solutions.

That’s why, as a kid that grew up here, a father hoping my grandkids will be raised here, a business person trying to compete globally from here — I’m putting my voice behind Tony Brockman for House District 8. When I grab Tony for a coffee, it’s clear I’m talking to a guy that listens to me. When I see him vote in line with his constituency, in some cases taking serious heat for doing so, I see a guy weathering a squall. I see one of many small steps being made.

I urge you to join me in supporting a steadfast representative who listens to his constituents. Vote Tony Brockman, House District 18.

— John Ghekiere, Kalispell