The Kalispell City Council approved Stelling Engineers Monday night as the consulting firm for questions and studies regarding possible updates and expansion at the municipal airport. The 5-3 vote to take on Stelling does not guarantee any financial commitment on the part of Kalispell, nor does it indicate which direction the council may head on the airport, the future of which has grown into the top issue facing the city.
Those questions may see some answers at a Feb. 8 work session, where council members plan to spend the bulk of their time discussing the airport and trying to make some progress toward its future policy.
Instead, City Manager Jane Howington likened the vote to keep Stelling to retaining an outside attorney for the city during labor negotiations.
“They wouldn’t do anything unless we needed something,” Howington said. “It’s simply having someone on reserve that’s an expert in the field.”
As with any decision even tangentially related to the city airport, deliberation was protracted. The initial motion, tabled once in November and again a month later, was to hire Stelling Engineers and begin steps to have that firm conduct the environmental assessment for airport updates. While some council members complained the contract was too vague, Howington said it was in a “task order” format, where no money could be spent on Stelling without coming before the council for a public vote and debate to appropriate the funds.
Councilman Jeff Zauner introduced an amendment to limit the vote to simply hiring Stelling as the consultant which passed 5-3. Councilman Bob Hafferman then moved to table the entire issue until after the Feb. 8 work session, which failed 5-3. A vote then quickly followed approving Stelling.
Hafferman argued that hiring a consultant before the city had any idea what it planned to do with the airport made no sense, while other council members said not every vote related to the airport should become a referendum on whether the airport improvements should move forward.
“If you’re wanting to let the emotions of the public comment that was not specific to the engineer enter into your decision,” Councilwoman Kari Gabriel said, “I’m seeing everything being balled into this one decision on how we feel about what’s going to happen to the airport, when we really shouldn’t be.”
Also at the meeting, the “Citizens’ City Airport Study Group,” composed of members from the Quiet Skies Committee, which has long criticized planned updates at the airport, submitted a list of recommendations to the council.
Presenting the list, Steve Eckels urged the council to amend city zoning laws to exclude commercial flights at the airport and rewrite leases for the airport, because they had been previously “erroneously transacted.” He also said the city needs to hire independent accountants, auditors and appraisers to determine the worth of the airport land if put to an alternate use, and to then place the issue on the ballot for a vote. Only after these steps are carried out, Eckels said, should any environmental assessment occur.