The clean drinking water ballot measure before Whitefish voters earned broad support. The effort is endorsed by a diverse groups of individuals like Charlie Abell, Bob Brown, Mike Jenson, Ryan Friel, Dan Weinberg, and hundreds of other locals, myself included.
Whitefish’s clean water ballot won the endorsement of the three most recent city mayors and both north valley state representatives. That’s decades in service and local knowledge about the issues facing our small tourist town.
The Daily Inter Lake wrote that funding the water project with resort tax makes sense. Their editorial wrote in part that, “The Whitefish City Council decided the resort tax is the fairest way of paying the city’s share of the easement cost. We agree.”
The Whitefish ballot measure asks voters to increase the city’s resort tax from two to three percent for 10 years. Revenues would fund a permanent land conservation agreement with F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company on 3,000 acres in the Haskill Basin, adjacent to town.
Seventy percent of these new revenues would go toward clean water, 25 percent toward property tax relief, and 5 percent toward merchant tax collection.
The question before Whitefish city voters makes good sense to plenty of people receiving a ballot. Mail-in ballots have landed in the mailboxes of registered voters. Ballots must be returned and received by April 28.
Many city voters will mail back their clean water ballots to the election office this week or next. Like any non-presidential year election voter turnout may be low, especially given an April special ballot. A low ballot return rate would be unfortunate given this question is unlikely to come before voters again.
Polling a few months ago, contracted by The Trust for Public Lands, indicated that a bit over a quarter of voters asked were unlikely to support a tourist tax increase for clean water.
These voters may worry about economic impacts or simply look unfavorably toward any new tax; even one that predominantly increases tourist tax revenues from the 500,000 visitors who stay and shop in Whitefish annually.
Citizens voting against measures are very likely to return ballots. That’s unfortunately not the case for voters who perceive that ballot measures are a no-brainer.
The biggest reason that the clean water ballot measure could possibly fail has nothing to do with whether it is a good idea, but rather voter apathy. Given big public support for clean water, it’s a false perception that someone else will take care of it. Don’t take that chance with clean water, return your ballot today.
As election night results poured in last November the key takeaway by poll watchers was not that the north valley state representatives won, but rather that half the city voters did not cast a ballot.
If Whitefish voters leave their ballot on the kitchen table on April 28, it’s a shame. Whitefish won’t see this kind of clean water deal again.
Whitefish citizens who support protecting Haskill Basin can demonstrate that support by voting, putting a stamp on their ballot, and mailing it back today.
Many locals live in Whitefish because of the clean water, the open public lands and the lifetime of recreational opportunities our safe community offers.
Whitefish is known to brew famous coffees and beers. The question before voters asks whether citizens want to protect the source of that clean water forever.
It’s rare when voters are asked to cast a ballot on a measure that offers clean drinking water, significant property tax relief, and permanent recreational access onto 3,000 acres of productive timberland. The city has done its part by putting the clean water question before voters, now Whitefish can do their part and mail back their ballot today.