Downtown eyesores
Has any city official looked at the old Truby’s or Coaches Corner lately? They are both totally disgusting.
My husband and I were walking behind tourists last Saturday listening to their comments about the dirty ugly mess beside and in front of what was Truby’s.
Their comments were embarrassing. How can we talk about the aesthetics of Whitefish when we have two eyesores in the middle of downtown that are completely ignored by the city?
Who owns these lots? Allowing this litter to remain on your property is surely against city ordinance.
Levy Johnson
Whitefish
Development too dense
The Whitefish City-County Planning Board barely passed the riverside development for the former North Valley Hospital site, granting six deviations. Why have rules and standards that are not enforced? I ask that you reject the plan as submitted by the Aspen Group.
I would be very surprised if the Whitefish City Council would point to The Monterra as a development in which it took pride. Yet Greg Stratton, from Aspen Group’s Bozeman office, which is developing the grandly called “The Banks at Whitefish,” is suggesting that The Monterra’s cookie-cutter look, and too narrow streets without sidewalks, would create a “downtown feel.”
Gosh, not my idea of what I want my downtown to look like — and it’s not even downtown. If you allow the Aspen Group a deviation to build three stories, why not other developments that are downtown and elsewhere in the city?
The Banks envisions ownerships as second homes or vacation homes — again much like The Monterra’s population. We already are having difficulties enforcing the short-term rental law there — why perpetuate such a problem?
Please insist on lower density, sidewalks and regulation streets. I’m sure the developers could do something toward affordable housing. And, please, please keep the beautiful trees along the U.S. Highway 93 corridor.
The Banks, with the deviations as planned, will serve only to enrich the people developing it — it will do nothing helpful for the city, the people who eventually live there and who try to safely navigate those narrow streets, and those of us who would have to live with what you’ve allowed.
Doreen Cavin
Whitefish
Opposes Park gravel pit
I would like to call attention to an issue of profound importance to the future of Montana and the integrity of our communities and the quality of life that we enjoy and that our economy depends on.
This is the application by Robert Spoklie for a major gravel-mining operation right next to Glacier National Park and surrounded by private residential properties. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has called for a public comment period and recently did the wise thing by extending the period of public comment from a mere 10 days to May 1.
This was important in that it removed the impression, for many people, that this was a “fast track” process to favor private interests over public rights. The existing environmental assessment proposal appears to many people in the community to be superficial, arbitrary, subjective and lacking in the hard scientific data to support the scale of the proposed gravel mining operations. Significant environmental impacts are not even addressed.
The degree to which such a gravel mining operation would permanently diminish our national treasures, Glacier National Park and the Middle Fork of the Flathead River (a Wild and Scenic River) and the tourist economy it supports, is evident in the outrage already expressed by local residents, businesses and public land agencies that have the interests of all Americans, not just a local corporation, in mind.
Please write to the contacts below and demand a full scale environmental impact statement and public hearing so that this decision is made with true scientific data and full adherence to the law and policies of Montana and the U.S. and doesn’t become another example of corporate benefit over common citizens. We’ve seen enough of that with bailouts and economic melt downs. Let’s have real accountability be the order of the day for a change.
The DEQ document is available online at www.deq.mt.gov/ea/opencut.asp. Comment via e-mail at rsamdahl@mt.gov or by mail to Rod Samdahl, DEQ, Industrial and Energy Minerals Bureau, 109 Cooperative Way, Suite 105, Kalispell MT 59901 or fax to 755-8977.
Ann Casler-Fagre
West Glacier
Wants his Starbucks
I have been looking forward to having a Starbucks at the new Safeway. The only way I get a cup of coffee and the cinnamon roll is when I fly, especially into Minnesota.
I get a two-hour lay-over and sit there and get my cup and a very good roll. Sorry that we might get that here.
A. G. Alexander
Whitefish