Coincidence?

If there is an annual award for opportunist of the year, Whitefish city manager Gary Marks and the Whitefish City Council have just become nominees, thanks to their scheme to move Flathead County's 911 dispatch center to Whitefish.

Although the council and manager argued, among other things, that a dispatch center in Whitefish would not be submerged were Hungry Horse Dam to fail, their real reason for proposing the move is money.

Said Marks to the Whitefish Pilot, "I hope to see the county dispatch center located in Whitefish … partnering with these agencies could help reduce the cost of our new building."

In a way, that crass admission that creative financing is at the bottom of this is refreshing. It makes sense — at least from the perspective of Whitefish.

But the notion that the probability that the Hungry Horse Dam could fail justifies the move is a long, long reach. The dam weathered the flood of 1964 without incident. Moreover, it is a concrete arch dam, probably the strongest dam design per pound of concrete ever constructed.

Concrete arch dams have survived overtopping by a third of their height, and dams older than Hungry Horse have survived earthquakes without significant damage.

Whitefish's disaster committee (and the state people who devised the Jan. 19 Hungry Horse Dam failure exercise) ought to leave the Hungry Horse Dam failure scenario to Hollywood.

That said, I do agree that the current location of the 911 dispatch center is not optimal, and that the center ought to be moved. But I would move it to Buffalo Hill in Kalispell, where it would be well above the river but a long way from forests that might burn.

As for Whitefish's new building, let it be paid for by the people for whom is it being built — the people of Whitefish.

James Conner

Kalispell