Former Kalispell Mayor Pam Carbonari has been hired by the downtown Business Improvement District (BID) to be its new coordinator.
“We are very happy with our decision,” BID Chairman Jon Fetveit said upon announcing the hire last week. “Her experience with the City of Kalispell and the downtown district was unparalleled, having served eight years as mayor of Kalispell and another eight years on the city council before that.”
Carbonari, formerly Kennedy, was selected from more than 50 applicants, and said she believes the job will allow her to continue to promote and revitalize downtown.
“The heart of Kalispell has always been important to me,” she said.
As the BID coordinator, Carbonari said she will serve as the “point person” coordinating events with the Kalispell Downtown Association, Chamber of Commerce and city government.
Reporting to the BID board, Carbonari has a list of tasks she begins to tackle this week, including: expanding downtown Kalispell’s Web site; improving signage establishing downtown’s historic district; adding to the downtown walking tour brochure; starting a newsletter; collaborating with the city on its spring cleaning effort and working with the KDA on the popular Thursday!fest summer street parties.
The BID is also working on a 5K run through downtown later this year, and Carbonari said she hopes to add new elements to the popular hot rod event through Kalispell, the Glacier Rod Run.
She is focused as well on filling downtown storefront vacancies with business, and said she plans to “immediately start doing walkabouts” to downtown businesses to build a contact list and “find out what it is that they would like to see happen, so we can make sure we’re doing everything for economic vitality on the downtown district.”
The BID coordinator position is part-time, and Carbonari said she will maintain her work with Great Bear Builders.