As a Kalispell city councilor, Dustin Leftridge aims to draw on the same principle he followed through his 10 years as a river guide.   

“One of the things that I really care about is being able to leave things in a better place than you left them,” Leftridge said. “Not only is it an ethos when you go on the river, but it’s also how I feel about our community.”   

The 40-year-old outdoorsman, environmental lawyer and father was appointed last month to the open Ward 3 Kalispell City Council seat left vacant after Ryan Hunter’s ascension to mayor. He will serve out the two years remaining in Hunter’s term.  

Leftridge grew up surfing in the Northern California coastal city of Eureka while spending summers in the woods of Montana's Swan Valley visiting his father. The Mission Mountains Wilderness ranger and former environmental educator would bring Leftridge along on his hikes. Each one felt like a natural history lesson.    

“What's going on with the geology? What's going on the plants and the animals?” he would ask his father. “It kind of led into my love of the outdoors.” 

After graduating high school, Leftridge worked as a wildland firefighter in California’s Central Valley. But after a couple of years, heat stroke left him looking for another line of work. His father enticed him into a more refreshing life on the river.  

Leftridge began guiding Lewis and Clark historical tours in canoes down the Missouri River. But the thrill-seeker eventually gravitated toward white water raft guiding in the summers while earning degrees in geology and political science at the University of Montana.   

It was there that Leftridge developed an interest in government, overseeing a multimillion-dollar budget as student body president in 2007. One achievement he looks back on with pride is helping revive the university’s recycling program. The student government conducted a comprehensive climate assessment report, which helped guide future environmentally focused programs at the school.   

Appreciation for a clean environment carried over to his law career. After graduating from the University of Montana School of Law in 2013, he joined McGarvey Law in Kalispell. The firm represents individuals suffering from the effects and exposure to dangerous substances. 

For the past 12 years, Leftridge has represented former miners and their families in Libby, a town poisoned by decades of vermiculite mining.   

“It’s one of the biggest environmental catastrophes that exist in the United States,” he said.  

Leftridge has also held an interest in grassroots organizing since college. He most recently helped the One Brave Pack team lead a successful campaign to pass the $2.97 million general fund levy for Kalispell Public Schools' high schools.

“Both of my parents were educators, so I appreciate education, and I also appreciate how hard public school teachers work and how underappreciated and underpaid they are,” he said. 

Leftridge helped rally high schoolers who didn’t want to see their teachers get laid off, sending them door-to-door to garner support. While the number of no votes remained consistent with previous failed attempts to pass the levy, the number of votes in favor increased, Leftridge said.  

The community-centered approach Leftridge took for the campaign is also how he aims to be accessible to his constituents.  

“I would love for anybody in Ward 3 to reach out to me, come to my office,” he said.  

Leftridge also hopes his expertise as a lawyer will prove helpful in reaching common ground among councilors.  

“You have a case with a thousand people against a defendant, not only do you have to litigate it, but eventually you get into some discussions trying to figure out how to resolve the issue,” Leftridge said.  

He compared the circumstance to his first meeting in City Hall, where councilors mulled over a 150-page land use plan intended to guide the city’s growth through 2045.  

“What you’re talking about is what the valley is going to look like in 20 years based upon text. And so being able to kind of help vision that, think about the long-term ramifications and ultimately get nine people to agree on what that looks like. I think it requires some creative thinking, some strategic thinking, and I think that’s something that I can bring to the table,” Leftridge said. 

As a 12-year resident of Ward 3, Leftridge fell in love with the area’s walkability. His 7-year-old walks to Hedges Elementary School, and he lives just a few blocks from his office on First Avenue East.  

But downtown businesses also struggle with aging infrastructure, narrow sidewalks and a loud, busy highway cutting through the city center, Leftridge said.  

Leftridge supported installing traffic safety measures downtown but backed away from supporting shaving lanes off Main Street, a proposed project shot down in June when Council decided against pursuing a federal grant to fund it. 

“I think that any effort in order to make our streets safer, more pedestrian-friendly, more of a place where people want to congregate is a good thing. Does that necessarily mean that I support reducing it down to two lanes? I can’t really say that right now,” he said.    

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