Commissioner says thanks

I have wanted to say thank you to the County Planning Board for their tireless work on the Flathead County Growth Policy but honestly, it is hard to find words that are adequate. Here is a group of dedicated intelligent volunteers that have met for countless hours since November 3, 2004 to provide the county with an updated and current Growth Policy. It all started in 2002 with a meeting at a town hall meeting in the North Fork to update the 1987 Master Plan. Since then over 130 events have occurred during the timeline to get us to this point. The commissioners now have it for final review and adoption. Stay tuned as the commissioners are having a commissioner workshop scheduled for January 9 with the opportunity to hear from you on the work. Thank you Planning Board, this county and the future of it will have your handprints on it for many years to come. There will always be criticism of it because there is no way it will be perfect for every person but again I want to thank you each one for your extreme dedication and hard work on this most important work. This document is required for regular review and in my mind, as a living document, it will do nothing but get better as time goes on and with more community involvement and input.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank each and every individual that applied for different county boards. The planning board itself had more than 12 letters of interest and that just shows how active and involved this community is. Thank you so much for those that have served but are not on some of these county boards anymore, your service and dedication has been an inspiration and I thank you on behalf of the commission and the community. There are some boards that have a few vacancies but overall the overwhelming interest in serving the county has been wonderful and an example that Flathead County is healthy.

We are excited to have Dale Lauman join the team as he brings so much experience and integrity to the position of county commissioner. We had a board retreat recently with the commission and county administrator, it was an exiting time as we looked forward and planned for the future. We have talked about night meetings when they are called for. If the Commissioner are considering a very large project that impacts a large segment of this community we want to give opportunity to hear from folks it affects. I also had a recent meeting with the Mayor of Kalispell and we discussed having a town Hall meeting now and again and give the community an opportunity to let Government leaders hear from you on any subject of interest to you. We have also been working on implementing civil dialog standards as a result of a group of us working under the organization title of "Flathead on the Move". Stay tuned, there will be upcoming opportunities to be involved. Again, thank you community members and board members that have been involved in our Government process, we are a better community because of your efforts.

I wish each and every one a very happy, prosperous and healthy New Year.

Gary D. Hall/Flathead County Commissioner