Keep Red Bridge project local

Would someone please tell me why is it that The First Best Place Task Force finds it necessary to employ an engineering firm from Missoula to provide estimates on the Red Bridge restoration project?

Can they not, for the love of the Red Bridge, find a competent engineering firm in the Flathead Valley willing to tackle this project? Someone with a realistic estimate that the project could be done for half the price of the $1.9 million now projected, give or take a few thousand?

And then find a local contractor who employs local craftsmen to complete the project. It seems to me that The First Best Place Task Force should be looking in the "first best place" for any and all of its estimates and labor force.

They've been given four months by the Flathead County Commissioners to come up with a work plan. Four months? It should only take them about four weeks, and they could surely find someone competent locally who can "get ‘er done" and keep the money in the valley.

Four months for answers. Or what - abandon the project? Or shell out multiple thousands to tear down and remove the bridge? Or let it unrestrainedly, indiscriminately and eventually crumble into the river? Does anyone care?

Maybe a few of our local engineers and contractors can come together and figure a way to keep the work here, in the valley. A historic landmark for Columbia Falls, to be used by predominantly local pedestrian traffic, should be reconstructed by the contractors and laborers of this community to help support our local economy.

You've seen the bumper sticker "Who's Your Farmer?" Let's have a new one: "Who's Your Bridge Builder?"

Keith Kratzer lives in Columbia Falls.