What is happening in Whitefish?

It is a sad day when a small town in Northwest Montana has to be shaken by our Flathead County government and told to stop destroying their own residents' property values, as has happened in Whitefish. This is what normally happens in major metropolitan areas around our country, but not in Whitefish, or so we thought.

Many of the residents of Whitefish moved here to escape these bureaucratic controls, only to face them, and much worse, here. As a resident of Whitefish, what we all see happening right now to our town is sickening. Barely a day goes by that legal threats aren't being thrown back and forth by our city attorney at our own county government and commissioners.

Our council, basically silent, allows city attorney John Phelps to continue to make decisions for them and our citizens and enter into legal battles that he can't win. Our council members make light of the fact that they know they are going to be sued, and sued again, over the new slope ordinance.

The fact that they are tying up valuable real estate for the citizens of Whitefish means nothing to them, nor the tremendous costs incurred to our city government to fight these lawsuits. They know that these lawsuits are lining up now as we speak, by property owners that are not going to stand by and allow them to destroy the value of their property.

Our city attorney tells them not to worry, he can defend the city against its own citizens and county government. How many times have we heard him make these same legal guarantees in the past, only to be beaten time and time again by local Whitefish attorney Sean Frampton?

This doughnut law and the slope ordinance are both hurting our town — for what reason? If anyone believes that both of these are not in place to slow or stop growth, they are blind to the facts. Experts have proven that the slope ordinance is a complete mess and seriously flawed. It has taken properties that were approved, by our own city, and rendered many worthless.

The city has been sued over it, lost, yet the new council blindly passed it anyway. How can they expect to win a battle that completely goes against what our Constitution clearly guarantees us as property owners and citizens of not only Whitefish but also the United States?

The doughnut law is designed to control growth outside our city limits. These property owners have no ability to vote on council members who they believe have their best interest at heart, as we residents of Whitefish do. Yet our council wants to be able to tell them what they can and cannot do with their property.

We all want to protect water quality, but that doesn't mean you tell property owners they can now only build a small house, on a very small corner of their lot, or in some cases not be able to build at all, if they unfortunately own a beautiful sloped property. If my recollection of history is correct, this is not a democracy.

Meanwhile, our city taxes have skyrocketed in the past two years, and our leaders want to further increase them by building a new high school for just 575 students that is fitting of a private, tuition-based high school. Yet they have now nearly stopped the growth in Whitefish. The number of students is declining, not increasing, and they want us to believe we need to spend $21 million on a new high school?

Homes that should be in the process of being built right now, adding new tax revenue to the city, are not and may not for several years until the legal battles are sorted out, meaning the additional revenue to pay for this school will be the responsibility of the current residents of Whitefish.

All the wonderful amenities that we now enjoy in Whitefish — The Wave, theater, library, hospital, bike trails, the list goes on and on — we only have because of the growth we have enjoyed over the past several years.

We are headed down a very rough road if our leaders continue to operate in this manner. Let's put these volatile issues out to vote to the residents of Whitefish and allow our town, as a whole, to decide our future. I do not know a single person that is in favor of either of the doughnut law or the ridiculous slope ordinance, yet we have a very small group of people, our city council, along with an anti-growth city attorney, that is leading our town into a legal war, the likes of which our town has never seen, and worse is that the battle is with its own residents and county government.

We have voted these council members into power and asked them to make important decisions for us that will affect all of us and our children for generations to come. Instead they have been influenced by a city attorney who is focused on stopping growth. Let's be thankful that we do have a county government that is concerned about protecting our rights as well as courts that still uphold the Constitution.

Unfortunately, they are now all that are protecting the citizens of Whitefish from its own, and I use this term very loosely, "leaders."

Eric Payne is a resident of Whitefish.