Steering committee fills vacant seat

The Bigfork Steering Committee appointed Jim Lohse to act as the vice-chairman of the committee until October, filling the seat left vacant after the death of Elna Darrow in February.

Lohse, who has become a recent fixture at the meetings, accepted the nomination, saying, "I'll be glad to help out any way I can."

The committee heard updates from the full gamut of the BSC's subcommittees, including resort tax, stormwater and North Lake County planning.

Leslie Budowitz said that the North Lake County Planning and Zoning subcommittee was receiving responses from the 1,200 letters it sent out to landowners in the proposed district. The committee is exploring the possibility of creating a zoning district that would include parts of the lower Swan Valley, Ferndale and Woods Bay.

"We've gotten back about 140," Budowitz said. "But the responses haven't been catalogued yet."

Budowitz said the survey asked questions about desired land uses, potential zones and invited general comments.

A pair of meetings have been scheduled for this summer for residents to give input as well as a chance for the committee to present the survey results and show maps with possible designations.

Those meetings are slated for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21 at Bethany Lutheran Church in Bigfork and at the same time the next night at BruMar Estates in Ferndale.

Sue Hanson announced that the Bigfork Stormwater Committee received a grant from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality that will help fund a project with Bigfork Schools to install a retention and filtration system to stop stormwater runoff from the school.

Hanson said the system will be installed on the Grande Avenue side of the school in front of the newly built elementary school cafeteria.

"We're estimating that the stormwater from the school's four acres will be reduced by about 90 percent," she said.

A similar system was installed on the other side of the school last fall. The series of pipes and sand and gravel fill is buried under the playground adjacent to Commerce Street.

The grant will also help get the final design phase under way for a stormwater proposal for downtown Bigfork. And, Hanson said, if the design can get finished fast enough, there could be federal stimulus money available to get the project started.

"We're dancing as fast as we can because projects have to be shovel-ready," she said.

The federal money would come through the Treasure State Endowment Program, which issues grants for projects with money collected from energy development.

Finally, the committee moved to send a letter to the Flathead County Commissioners thanking them for their consideration of the Bigfork Neighborhood Plan and encouraging them to heed the unanimous vote of the Flathead County Planning Board to approve the document.

A hearing on the Bigfork plan will be held at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 23 in the commissioners' chambers in Kalispell. Public comment on the plan will be limited to the general comment time from 8:30 to 9:15 a.m. No comment will be taken once the hearing begins.

BSC chairman Craig Wagner urged as many people as possible to attend the meeting to show support for the document, which has been in the works for nearly five years.