Kalispell City Council on Monday opted to pursue a state grant for a backup generator for the city’s public safety building after a December windstorm left the facility without power for two days.  

Wind gusts ripping through Northwest Montana cut power to thousands of homes from Libby to the Flathead Valley, at its peak affecting more than 30,000 Flathead Electric Cooperative customers.  

The outage at the facility that serves as the base of operations for the Kalispell Police and Fire departments highlighted the need for a backup power source, said Police Chief Jordan Venezio. 

“It really just opened conversations of, if we were to have a really sustained power outage, kind of all the impacts that we’d have,” Venezio told the Inter Lake. 

Losing power disrupts an array of police operations, including the ability to write search warrants, communicate with officers in the field and carry out administrative work, Venezio said.   

While no evidence was affected by the December outage, Venezio said a prolonged one could have damaged refrigerated items.  

“If we weren’t to get power back, there is a significant amount of cases that can be impacted by that,” Venezio told Council. 

City Hall will seek dollars from the State Resiliency Fund grant program, administered by Montana Disaster and Emergency Services. The agency has $3.8 million in available funding, with individual grants capped at $300,000 and requiring a 25% local match.  

City Manager Jarod Nygren estimates the backup generator installation will cost about $380,000. He planned to return to Council with options for covering the required local match. The grant application deadline is March 6. 

Council also hired a contractor to drill six new drinking water wells to replace sites contaminated by what are commonly known as forever chemicals.  

Arlee-based Coldwater Drilling and Pump offered the lowest bid at around $1.7 million for the project, which the city will pay for through state and federal grants.  

The city plans to drill two well sites to replace the Grandview Wells and Armory Well, which have consistently detected levels of per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, since they were tested in 2022.  

Councilors also hired a contractor to repair and resurface the lazy river at Woodland Water Park and brought on an architectural consulting firm to design and build a new equipment garage and a storage facility for solid waste equipment. 

COUNCIL OK’D a trio of development proposals around the west side of Kalispell, two of which are related to the large Bloomstone development between the U.S. 93 Bypass and the Dan Johns Kalispell Youth Athletic Complex.  

The developer was granted final plat approval for an 8-acre subdivision with 42 townhouse lots and preliminary plat approval to re-subdivide 12 acres of its property into three lots for multifamily units.  

Council also granted a preliminary plat request for 54 residential lots over two phases in the Starling subdivision located just west of Stillwater Road.  

COUNCILORS AND city officials discussed whether a poll presented by Livable Flathead Executive Director Nathan Dugan — which surveyed county voters on housing issues — was valid.  

The nonprofit dedicated to managing growth in the valley hired polling firm Embold Research to randomly survey 615 registered voters to capture public opinion on the region’s housing issues. The poll found that seven in 10 voters think the county lacks sufficient housing options.  

The survey also found that a majority of people prioritized building more homes to reduce costs over protecting neighborhood character. But city planners said that the finding differed greatly from what they heard while doing public outreach for the city’s new land use plan.  

“That is not what we heard in the public,” Nygren said. “We’ve done a lot of our public outreach as well, and that’s not what we saw at all.”  

But Hunter said that a random poll may have better captured public opinion than hearing from people at stakeholder meetings and open houses.    

“People who participate in public outreach stuff tend to be wealthier, they tend to be property owners,” he said.   

Dugan, a Democrat who recently launched a campaign for county commissioner, hoped the poll would help inform councilors while they reviewed the city’s new land use planning document, which is being crafted in accordance with the Montana Land Use Planning Act and meant to guide the city’s growth for the next 20 years.  

After adjourning the meeting, Councilors continued their review of the planning document during a work session.    

DEBATE GREW heated between Councilor Jed Fisher and Hunter over whether to designate a large tract of agricultural land west of the city limits as an environmentally sensitive area for sandhill cranes — a proposal that originated from a letter the Flathead Land Trust submitted to City Hall.   

The large chunk of the West Valley area is located within the city’s planning boundary and used by hundreds of the birds while they migrate. Hunter originally wanted to strike the area from the city’s future land use plan altogether, but city officials recommended against altering the boundary.  

Hunter said he contacted Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which plans to submit a map of the habitat area to Council.  

Fisher questioned the mayor’s intentions, pointing to his employment with the Flathead Land Trust.  

“I swear this was your letter, your honor. This was your letter, not your coworkers,” Fisher said.  

“I didn’t. Listen I work for the organization. I share their values, but I am sorry that you are calling me a liar,” Hunter replied.   

“I’m not calling you a liar,” Fisher said.  

Hunter reiterated that he was not involved with drafting the letter, “and that’s the honest truth,” he said.  

Fisher argued that labeling an area currently outside of city limits as environmentally sensitive would infringe on the landowners’ property rights, while Hunter countered that the move would be no different from identifying riparian corridors — something already included in the land use plan.  

Councilors agreed to wait for a response from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks before making any changes. 

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