Kalispell City Council on Monday night appointed Jarod Nygren as city manager.  

Nygren's ascension marks the end of a months-long search for a successor for Doug Russell, who departed the position in August after 13 years. Nygren had been serving as interim city manager in the meantime.  

Councilor Ryan Hunter, who will step into the role of mayor in the new year, expressed his full support for Nygren during the Dec. 15 meeting. 

“I think there’s a lot of value in having somebody who is intimately familiar with our city government,” Hunter said.  

Nygren, who is presently the city’s director of Development Services, has worked in Kalispell’s planning department for 11 years. As the city’s chief administrator, he will oversee the day-to-day operations of a municipality with 244 full-time employees and a $180 million budget.  

Nygren entered a five-year contract term and will receive a $200,000 base annual salary subject to a yearly increase, a $750 monthly vehicle allowance and paid health insurance for himself and his family, according to a memo from City Attorney Johnna Preble.  

He emerged as the sole finalist for the position after GMP Consultants, who was spearheading the recruitment process, invited five finalists for interviews. All of the candidates except Nygren declined.  

FLATHEAD WARMING Center Executive Director Tonya Horn said the newly adopted policy for revoking conditional use permits would allow Council to take nebulous, subjective and political actions against permit holders.  

She spoke on Monday night before Council adopted the policy with a second reading, the typical procedure when passing an ordinance. Councilors Jessica Dahlman and Hunter voted in opposition again. 

The code lays out the process by which Council can revoke, suspend or reconsider a permit if it determines there were misrepresentations made in the property owners’ application, whether intentional or not. 

“I keenly am aware of the damage that can be caused by a bad government process. My hope is that the city of Kalispell would amend its code in such a way that the travesty that happened to the Flathead Warming Center would never happen again,” Horn said. 

Lawyers for the homeless shelter filed a lawsuit in federal court against Kalispell last year, alleging the city illegally revoked the facility’s permit and denied it due process after Council acted on neighbor complaints about the shelter. The case was later settled with the city agreeing to apologize to Horn and pay the shelter’s legal bills. 

“You claimed unproven findings of facts, making the Flathead Warming Center and the entire homeless population the villain of homelessness in our community. I don’t want that to happen again to anyone ever,” Horn said.  

Prior to Council adopting the text change, a revocation process hadn’t existed in Kalispell’s code since 2008. City officials maintain, however, that the municipality has always had the power to revoke permits under state law.  

Horn on Monday night recounted her experience defending the shelter against scrutiny from Council during the yearlong dispute over its relationship with the neighborhood.  

“Being in this room, during your hearings and work sessions, were by far the most painful and horrific moments of my life,” Horn said. “I was personally cursed at by a Council member. My character was put into question over and over publicly by this Council.”  

Councilor Chad Graham, who spearheaded to effort to revoke the shelter’s permit, said the legal bout was a dark time for him too. He bore insults as well, he said.  

“I had a hang up call, call me, and call me a Nazi whipping boy. There’s stuff on both sides of this,” Graham said. “I never talked about it until now.”  

Hunter said it was unfortunate Graham was called a name, but that elected officials should be held to a higher standard than the public.  

Hunter expressed his past concern that the policy allowed Council to revoke a permit based on unintentional mistakes in the property owner’s application. He said he wished councilors had taken more seriously the warning from the Warming Center’s lawyers that the policy would destroy the vested property rights of permit holders.  

“I think that it behooves us to take seriously when a national organization like Institute for Justice is winning a lot of cases across the country, won a case against us in a preliminary injunction case,” Hunter said.  

CODY HUNTER was nominated by Mayor Mark Johnson for the open planning commission seat before Council voted to appoint him.  

Hunter is the lead communications dispatcher at Logan Health and serves on the Kalispell Parking Advisory Board, Logan Health Subzero Summit and Flathead County Emergency Medical Services Board.  

Council also extended the Autumn Creek Subdivision’s preliminary plat for two years.  

The plat was originally approved in 2021 for JCM Development LLC to stake out 28 residential lots on around 8.4 acres at Hathaway Lane north of U.S. 2 West.  

A representative for TD&H Engineering said that the infrastructure improvements on the property are completed and that final plat will hopefully be submitted this week.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].