At a work session tonight, Kalispell City Council members will try to hash out ballot language for an upcoming referendum on the city’s 83-year-old general aviation airport.

“It’s all about boiling [the issue] down to its most simple terms,” City Attorney Charlie Harball said.

In May, the council voted 5-4 to have “the matter of future investment and maintenance of the city airport” decided by Kalispell voters in November’s general election.

The referendum was supported by council members Bob Hafferman, Tim Kluesner, Phil Guiffrida III, Wayne Saverud and Mayor Tammi Fisher. Jim Atkinson, Randy Kenyon, Jeff Zauner and Kari Gabriel voted against it.

Council members next must agree on the question to go before voters.

“I think it will boil down to whether [Federal Aviation Administration] funding should be used or not,” Harball said of the airport issue, which has lingered unresolved for years.

Language proposed by Harball spells out two options:

• Continue to pursue and utilize grant funds provided by the Federal Aviation Administration to contribute to capital improvements, maintenance and operation costs of the airport.

• Fund capital improvements, maintenance and operation costs of Kalispell City Airport only with such financial resources derived from airport operations, the general fund and permissible tax increment finance district funds.

In April, contractor Stelling Engineers recommended an airport expansion and upgrade to B-II design standards, nearly identical to the recommendation from a 1999 master plan.

Upgrading the airport to B-II standards would make it eligible for federal airport improvement program funds, which are generated from user fees and taxes in the aviation industry. Those funds could pay for 90 percent of the estimated $16 million cost, reimburse Kalispell for an estimated $3.1 million already spent toward such an upgrade and provide $150,000 a year for maintenance going forward.

Hafferman, Kluesner, Guiffrida and Fisher propose to tackle a backlog of deferred maintenance at the airport and possibly improve it using only city funds. They’re targeting an airport/athletic complex tax increment finance district fund that holds $1.8 million and generates $600,000 a year.

That tax increment finance district sunsets in 2020, when it would pay out any accumulated balance at that time to the general funds of the state, county, city and local school districts.

The goal tonight is to craft clear ballot language that must be formally approved and sent to the county by August.

“My goal is to get something on the ballot so voters know what they’re voting for,” Harball said.

Tonight’s meeting will include Doug Russell, Kalispell’s new city manager who started work last week. It starts at 7 p.m. in Kalispell City Hall, 201 First Ave. E. It is open to the public.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.