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DAILY INTER LAKE

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© 2007 The Daily Inter Lake

Dec. 6 — The question of a national park at Lake McDonald will probably be settled within the next few weeks. The majority of our people have little interest in the matter one way or the other. They simply do not care whether the park is created or not.

The Inter Lake has previously given its views, and will not repeat its reasons for preferring to have the country remain as it is; a portion of the national forest and under the supervision of the forestry department.

— The Inter Lake, 1907

FRONT & CENTER

100 YEARS

AGO

Lease increase may force county to move outBy MICHAEL RICHESONThe Daily Inter Lake

With the lease for the Con-rad Complex running out in September 2009, the Flathead County Parks and Recre-ation Department may strike out in a new direction.

Parks and Recreation Director Jed Fisher said discussions about a new lease started two years ago,

but the negotiations “have gone nowhere.”

The county has been pay-ing one dollar a year on a 50-year lease with the Conrad Cemetery, but that number is about to go up. Way up.

According to Fisher, negotiations with the cem-etery board of trustees have put the new price tag at $25,000 to $50,000 per year.

Fisher said the cemetery board is asking for that much money because that’s approximately the lease fee for the Kidsports ballfield complex in north Kalispell.

Attorney Dan Johns said Kidsports — a nonprofit alliance of youth sports

organizations — paid close to $40,000 to lease the state land this year.

The Kidsports facility has 22 fields on 134 acres (plus several new fields under construction) compared to the 27-acre, seven-field Con-rad Complex east of Wood-land Park.

“I personally don’t think it’s a fair comparison,” Fish-er said. “I think it’s outra-geous and unaffordable.”

Adult softball teams cur-rently pay $800 per team to play at Conrad, and that money covers basic utility costs. Fisher said that each complex user would have to pay an additional $20 to

$40 to raise another $30,000, something Fisher believes could drive many users away, especially families that have a hard time pay-ing the fees already.

The Park Board offered to pay $5,000 per year, but the cemetery board members weren’t interested.

“We don’t want to be unreasonable,” cemetery board president Jack Hens-ley said. “For 40 years, we haven’t gotten a dime. As trustees, we have a fiducia-ry responsibility to main-tain the cemetery for per-petuity. We’ve got to have

Future of Conrad Complex in question

Garrett Cheen/Daily Inter Lake

FLATHEAD COUNTY may have to give up the Conrad Complex if it can’t reach a deal on a new lease.See COMPLEX on Page A3

Jennifer DeMonte/Daily Inter Lake

Puddle predicament“An innocent walk turned trouble,” Christine Berry-Jorgenson said with a laugh after rescuing her daughter Emmy Jorgenson, 3, following a good romp in a puddle near their home Tuesday morning in Kalispell.

The Daily Inter Lake

Flathead Food Bank deliveries are rolling again, thanks to the donation of a 2000 full-size van from Kalispell Toyota.

Support has been pouring in since an Inter Lake story on Sat-urday about one of the food bank’s two transport vans being out of commission with a blown engine.

Food-bank officials were pan-icked because they rely heavily on both vehicles to haul food to outly-ing food pantries and pick up gro-ceries from several local stores.

There was no money in the budget for repairs that were esti-mated at $7,500.

“I’m overwhelmed with the generosity and the concern,” food bank Director Lori Botkin said. “People in this valley are incred-ibly generous.”

Food bank rolling with donated van

By LYNNETTE HINTZEThe Daily Inter Lake

The Whitefish City Council on Monday approved a resolution to give temporary amnesty to viola-tors of the city’s short-term rental regulations — with a few caveats.

Amnesty extends only to rentals made prior to Oct. 1, and rentals can’t extend beyond Sept. 7, 2008. After that, no rentals of less than 30 days will be allowed in residen-tial zones, as defined in existing zoning laws.

The resolution doesn’t allow short-term rentals in areas where they’re already prohibited by cov-

enants. That means covenants in developments such as Monterra and Birch Hill, where violations have been prevalent, would take precedence over the new law, and violators would be prosecuted.

Whitefish zoning doesn’t allow rentals of less than 30 days in residential zones.

When it came to the city’s atten-tion a few months ago that various property management firms and others were chronically violating the 30-day limit, the city noti-fied the violators and the council directed the city staff to develop a plan to provide temporary amnesty for violators to allow the city to explore solutions.

THE DILEMMA for City Coun-cil members was finding a way to accommodate both sides — resi-dents who want their quiet neigh-borhoods kept intact and visitors who drive the local tourist economy.

But for Birch Hill resident Joe Malletta, the solution was black and white.

“This resolution defies logic,” he said. “I can’t imagine that OKing the breaking of the law is some-thing the city should do.”

Malletta accused the city of “picking and choosing” which laws it enforces, and said absentee own-ership is a cancer that is degrad-ing traditional neighborhoods.

Property management agents

have a different take.“Vacation rentals don’t cost the

community money, they make the community money,” Susan Calkins of Hideaway Resorts wrote in a letter to the council. “When a town promotes tourism, it assures tourists that there will be ample places for them to stay to enjoy the ‘Whitefish experience.’”

Calkins maintained the zoning department’s estimate of 100 com-plaints about short-term rentals this year was misleading because the majority were from the Monter-ra development, where people were illegally using the clubhouse.

Whitefish Council OKs amnesty for rental violators

See AMNESTY on Page A3

By JOHN STANGThe Daily Inter Lake

The Flathead County Commis-sioners and Kalispell’s City Coun-cil are now united in supporting spending all available money on building the southern half of the U.S. 93 Bypass.

And in the next few days, Mon-tana’s Department of Transpor-tation is expected to announced what work will be done on the bypass in 2008 — using federal money funneled through the state.

The state has said it will likely follow the wishes of the local gov-ernments. The state hopes to seek bids next spring and to begin con-struction by late summer 2008.

Until Monday, Kalispell’s and Flathead County’s governments were split.

The commissioners voted 2-1 Monday to reverse a month-old

Commissioners,council reach agreement on bypass spending

See VAN on Page A3

See BYPASS on Page A3