The never-ending battle

A local guy named Melvin was in New York walking down Madison Avenue. As usual, he was wearing slightly torn jeans, a tired T-shirt, dusty boots and a black hat that looked like one Jed Clampett threw away.

He walked into the Ralph Lauren store. Soon the clerks swarmed around him, asking to buy every piece of clothing he had on, $300 for each piece.

People out in the cities are so hungry for something real, something honest, something not-city. That’s what they find so appealing about Whitefish. We’re gritty, sort of relaxed, not slaves to fashion, not plastic.

While I was working on the growth policy committee, our citizens over and over said, “Save Whitefish, protect Whitefish, we’re not Anywhere USA, we’re Whitefish.”

That’s what the fight over Safeway’s new store was about. For five months, our Architectural Review Committee asked Safeway to design a building that fits into our community. Safeway stonewalled them and went to the Whitefish City-County Planning Board asking for permission to build.

The planning board gave them the OK but told them to go get the Architecture Review Committee’s approval before coming to the city council. Safeway ignored that.

At city council, Mulhfeld, Woodruff and I said no, no, go back to the ARC and get their OK first. Guess what? Finally realizing we were serious, in seven days Safeway came up with a design that fits into our city, not into Newark, N.J.

Now it’s Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall who’s beating on our heads. He’s very angry that our city is not allowing commercial development at the gateways to our city on U.S. Highway 93 and Highway 40. He says we should set up architectural standards that would make that commercial development attractive.

But consider this — if we get the wrong people as mayor and on the city council, they’ll disband or neuter the architectural review committee and, whoopee, we’ll have commercial development like they do in southern California.

Instead, this present council looks at each proposed commercial development and judges it on its own merits. We are now doing that with the commercial node at Highway 40 and Dillon Road. My guess is that it will be approved with certain conditions to make it attractive, like good landscaping.

Hall is also mad about our Critical Areas Ordinance, which will protect our water quality. But I can tell you, as a member of the committee that drafted it, everyone’s property is to be looked at individually, and almost everyone will be able to build the way they want.

Gary seems very much “pro-growth driven by developers.” I and the rest of the Whitefish city council are for “smart growth,” with decisions made jointly by the council, developers and interested citizens.

By the way, Melvin walked out of the Ralph Lauren store, still wearing his same old clothes, after telling those folks thanks but he liked the way he looked just fine.

Nick Palmer is a Whitefish city councilor.”