Recall Campaign Targets Kalispell Mayor Over Land Use Plan Vote

A small group of Kalispell community members is seeking to recall Mayor Ryan Hunter over his deciding vote in April to include a map of migratory bird habitat in the city’s land use plan, a vote organizers say advanced the interests of his employer, the Flathead Land Trust.

Members of the campaign began canvassing three weeks ago, after the Flathead County Elections Administrator approved a petition form Sept. 15. To trigger a special election, the group needs signatures from 20% of the city’s registered voters, or 3,807, by Dec. 15.

Ryan Berner, a Kalispell resident and Army veteran, leads the committee, with James Roskos as the second petitioner and AmberLi Emery as treasurer. About eight people have signed up to collect signatures, Berner said. The petition, posted on the group’s Facebook page, alleges Hunter’s “conduct in office has made clear that his definition of stakeholders does not align with the residents who elect him,” according to an April 24 press release.

The vote involved an area north of Old Reserve Drive and west of Stillwater River, a stopover site for sandhill cranes and other migratory birds.

At a Jan. 26 work session on the city’s new land use plan, Laura Katzman, a land protection specialist at Flathead Land Trust, asked the council on the nonprofit’s behalf to remove the area from the Kalispell Growth Policy Planning Area. The pothole wetlands are ecologically significant, she said, and are the only known staging area in the valley for the migratory birds. The trust helped secure a 400-acre conservation easement nearby in 2018 that includes a public bird-viewing area.

After public comment, Hunter disclosed that he works at the land trust and said he did not help craft its comments.

“I’ve not been instructed in any way nor will I face any repercussions if I were to go against the official position of the organization, so I just want to make that clear,” Hunter said.

Some councilors pushed back, saying that excluding the area could disenfranchise property owners by discouraging growth, and that another conservation easement was the better solution.

“I want to protect them as well, but I don’t think zoning the area either by city or county is going to get that done,” Councilor Sid Daoud said.  

Councilors also noted they had no input from Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP) on the area. City planners added that even if the city changed the zoning to preclude development, Flathead County would likely allow it anyway.

Hunter said including the land in the growth plan would make a future conservation easement more difficult by raising its price.

“I know it’s going to get developed,” Hunter said. “I just don’t want the city to be part of it. I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to have my name associated with seeing this area destroyed because it’s such a valuable area and bringing it into the city even with some riparian buffers and some parks or set asides, it’s not going to do it.”

Without support from a council majority, the plan moved forward with the future growth area unchanged.

On April 6, the plan went before council for a final vote. Councilors reviewed an FWP map labeling the area an “area of concern,” which the agency sent after Hunter emailed asking whether it had anything to add about the area’s ecological significance. After receiving “considerable feedback” on the map and accompanying letter, FWP officials sent a follow-up letter in April clarifying that its role in the plan was advisory only.

An amendment to include the map passed 5-4, with Hunter’s swing vote despite a warning from City Attorney Johnna Preble. Citing state law and council policy, she said councilors should avoid votes that “could be construed as or take the appearance” of using public office for personal gain, and advised Hunter to recuse himself. Hunter denied a conflict, saying the map would not benefit the land trust.

The map does not change land-use regulations. Councilors who voted to include the map said they wanted to include all relevant information for future decisions, noting the area remains part of the growth plan.

Berner created the recall campaign’s Facebook page at the end of January, after the work session. The group waited until the deciding April vote to file because state law requires recall petitions to be based on official conduct.

“What people were unhappy about a month into his term was specific: a mayor using the office to advance his employer’s request over the recommendation of the city’s own planners, on a plan that governs how Kalispell grows for the next twenty years,” Berner said in an email.

Hunter won the city’s three-way mayoral race in November, campaigning on tighter development restrictions around wetland buffers, among other policies.

In a Sept. 12 letter to the Flathead County Attorney’s Office, Hunter reiterated that including the map did not change the value of the land or affect the possibility of a future conservation easement. He called the petition a distraction, and said he was “focused on governing for the people of Kalispell.”

“I made clear that there was no request or expectation from my employer that I vote a particular way and that I was free to vote as I wished without any repercussions from my employer,” Hunter said. “I stated that I was representing my own values and those of many of my constituents in supporting the documentation of important wildlife habitat in the Land Use Plan, which I believe is in the best interest of the community.”

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