Anderson focuses on business, job creation

Once a forester and horse logger, now a

lawyer and businessman, city council candidate John Anderson has

followed a varied career path.

He grew up in the Midwest north of

Green Bay, Wisc., in a mill town. He spent summers working in the

mill while earning a biology degree from Beloit College.

In 1988 he ventured west to Missoula

and worked for the Forest Service at the Powell Ranger Station on a

rehabilitation project at Gravy Creek. He liked Montana so much, he

decided to stay.

While working part-time with the Forest

Service, he started a horse logging business in the hills around

Missoula.

“I had a team of horses and a

chainsaw,” Anderson explained. “It was a lot of fun. I miss it

sometimes. But it’s dangerous work and it was tough. I scrapped

together a living, pay check to pay check, and earned enough to get

through the winter.”

Following his stint as a logger he

decided law school was the obvious next step. He was accepted to

the University of Montana School of Law and earned a general law

degree.

From there he moved to Libby for the

epic winter of 1996-97 where he lived in a cabin with his wife and

worked as a lawyer.

“We only had wood heat,” Anderson said.

“By the end of winter the snow was piled so high we couldn’t see

out of the windows.”

He then moved to Austin, Texas and

worked for a publicly traded company, on both the business and

legal sides of the operation. It was good a experience, he said,

“but I’m a country boy.”

They moved to Whitefish seven years ago

and Anderson is now managing the Kaufman, Vidal, Hileman firm in

Kalispell. He has served five years on the Whitefish Chamber of

Commerce board and is currently the chairman.

“We moved to Whitefish for the same

reasons everyone else does,” Anderson said. “We wanted a small town

that had all the things a family and young couple want.”

Anderson’s main focus if elected will

be the economy and job creation. He wants to continue his business

development agenda that he started with the chamber and says a seat

on council will help him push those ideas.

“There’s no doubt that municipalities

and businesses are intertwined,” he said. “They have to work

together.”

Anderson says Whitefish needs to

maintain its character and appeal for business opportunities to

sprout.

“One reason businesses want to come to

Whitefish, and one reason that Whitefish has had an increase in its

tax base is because of what Whitefish is,” he said. “It’s helpful

to look at other communities that have succeeded. The common

denominator is that they each have an identity and that the

community works real hard to keep that identity.

“These communities focus on their

downtown so that it stays healthy and vibrant. It doesn’t trump

every decision you make, but you have to keep downtown in

mind.”

Anderson doesn’t think Whitefish is

business unfriendly, as other candidates have suggested.

“I don’t think that’s right

substantively and I don’t think its the perception people should be

giving about Whitefish,” he said. “But there’s always improvements

that can be made. It would be helpful if the city took a more

customer-friendly approach and had a more streamlined permitting

process.”

He does think there are too many

regulations and that some ordinances need to be reviewed.

“Every time a regulation comes before

council, they need to ask, ‘Do we really need this?’” he said.

“Whitefish has more regulations than is really necessary. Their

substance and goals are all good, but we need look at obtaining

those goals with a lighter touch.”

The Critical Areas Ordinance is

important to maintaining Whitefish’s water quality, but could be

written more eloquently, he said.

“Clean water is a necessity for

Whitefish,” Anderson said. “We get our water from the lake. Clean

water is something this community needs to pay attention to. But

the CAO is over engineered. I’ve read through it twice to try and

understand it and I have to believe there is a more concise and

eloquent way to draft an ordinance that protects clean water.”

He says it’s important for the city to

have a role in the “doughnut” area.

“That’s where Whitefish is headed, the

next expansion will be into the ‘doughnut,’” he said.

He says the 2010 Interlocal Agreement

was a “non-document.”

“It wasn’t an agreement at all,” he

said. “If you really want to plan a community, a one-year horizon

really undermines your ability to do that.”

A renovated high school is necessary

and the city should play a complimentary role if asked by the

school board for assistance.

“If the city is approached, the city

needs to find a way to support the efforts of the folks trying to

renovate the school,” he said.

A new school will improve business

development, too.

“Families are a little reluctant to

move into Whitefish because of the current school,” he said.

A new City Hall should be downtown,

although he says he isn’t set on any one location.

The best attributes he’ll bring to the

council, Anderson says, are his patience and ability to bring

groups together.