With all the junk on television these days, sometimes I like to score some live entertainment. So, on June 1, at 7:10 p.m., I plunked down in the hallowed chambers of the Whitefish City Council. Oh, for a couch, a beer, and some pizza.
There was one item on the public agenda. Property management entrepreneurette Jill Zignego (Five Star Rentals) has been jumping hoops for a conditional-use permit to run her agency out of a detached garage at Seventh and Baker. I suppose with the economy tanking, Mrs. Zignego is looking to control overhead.
Given that property rental outfits need to be easy to find, especially by tired, lost visitors, and given that Baker is probably going to be southbound 93 if the “circulator” plan is implemented this century, no big deal, right?
Wow, the histrionics were worthy of a Hooters drive-through. Anyway, Zignego was voted her permit, and I was entertained.
But what I really came to see was how the council would handle the question of putting the downtown streetscaping project to a public referendum.
You’ve heard the old saw, “The world is run by those who show up,” and granted, the streetscape fiasco is the result of hundreds of hours of meetings.
Still, most people don’t go to meetings. Most of us don’t have a plan to run the world. All we want is for those who want to run the world to show up with common sense. When they don’t, and people find out they didn’t, that’s when the opposition pops out of the woodwork.
To gauge and prove the opposition, businessman Toby Scott took on the unlovely task of circulating a petition, gathering about 650 signatures supporting a referendum on the “New-Urbanism” of bulb-outs, raised crosswalks and other frou-frou whatnot.
But on the other side, council was told “don’t waste time,” “stay the course,” and that a referendum on streetscape was “not necessary.” City lawyer John Phelps declared the issue was “administrative” and not subject to public review, and new City Manager Chuck Stearns even wrote that voters could be “confused by contradictory information.”
Sorry, Chuck, but I’m not confused at all. Most of us who have been around here awhile know that downtown Whitefish looks like it does for a very good reason. I have not yet forgotten the winter of 1996-97, nor have I forgotten this year’s eight inches of rock-hard, moon-cratered ice on every single street.
And when it comes to administration, how about those stylish colored ramp inserts near the library that are shattering out already? Never mind all the divots ripped out of all that pretty new curbing by plow knives. I can only wish those who “designed” the new parking lot at Second and Spokane had to stick around to plow it. How many of those 81 spaces will be usable in January?
Let me put this “streetscape” issue in the context of Creationism versus Darwinism.
Downtown Whitefish may have been created in one year, when the Great Northern moved its main line. In the century since, however, it has evolved. Anyone who has seen the Prince Albert mural at the post office knows we didn’t always have roofed sidewalks or even pavement. But somebody obviously stabbed up the first wood and tin. “Gee, Ole, dot sure is goot idea!” “Yah, Sven, sure beats shovelink effry day, youbetcha.” So the “species,” Uptownuse Merchantus Whitefishus, adapted.
Ya know, when visitors say, as one lady pointed out, they come to Montana for an experience that is “not manufactured,” is it wise to manufacture Whitefish a new heart? Yet not a single councilor could even be bothered to make a motion to consider a referendum. Bottom line is Toby Scott got a fine civics lesson and was sent packing.
Later that night, I was snarling at my evil logger buddy Rob about how a real Montana town, that just happened to luck out on amenities, is being twisted into just another contrived Aspen/Jackson/Sun Valley tourist trap.
“Dave, Dave, Dave. Get over it. Whitefish is a tourist trap.”