Voting block emerges on new city council

A new Whitefish City Council showed its face Monday night with a split vote right out of the starting gate.

Freshmen councilor Chris Hyatt made the first motion of the year, requesting councilor Turner Askew be appointed deputy mayor.

Councilor Ryan Friel countered by motioning that councilor John Muhlfeld be the deputy mayor, but mayor Mike Jenson said the motions needed to be dealt with one at a time.

Freshman councilor Bill Kahle sided with Muhlfeld and Friel in opposing Askew's nomination, reinforcing Kahle's campaign position that he is not part of a slate that includes Hyatt and freshman councilor Phil Mitchell.

Jenson broke the tie, opposing Askew, and Friel recast his motion for Muhlfeld. Jenson broke another 3-3 tie in favor of Muhlfeld.

The three new councilors, however, joined Askew against Muhlfeld and Friel in support of the Glacier Twins' new grandstand project at Memorial Park, and two contentious issues from the election were raised at the end of the meeting during the councilor comment period.

The first, governance by "doughnut" residents in the city's two-mile planning and zoning jurisdiction, was brought up by Kahle, who said he had a productive discussion with Flathead County commissioner Joe Brenneman about opening up talks "outside the court room."

Ideas for providing governance in the "doughnut" have been discussed by the council in the past, Muhlfeld noted. City attorney John Phelps said further progress would require a state attorney general's opinion or new legislation.

City manager Chuck Stearns said a work session on those ideas would need to be moved ahead of other scheduled matters — such as how to reuse City Hall once the Emergency Services Center opens and an executive session on city lawsuits.

"I want to see the doughnut moved up," Kahle said, and the councilors agreed.

The second issue, wider sidewalks as part of the Central Avenue reconstruction project, has proved to be very contentious. During the public comment period at the start of the meeting, five people spoke against wider sidewalks and three spoke in favor.

Askew opened the sidewalk discussion by noting that a decision needed to be made soon so a design change wouldn't interfere with the contractor's work.

"You get four councilors to support you, and we'll put it on the agenda," Stearns said.

Askew's motion to put the matter on the next agenda as an action item was approved 4-2, with Muhlfeld and Friel opposed, but that's when Phelps pointed out a matter that has avoided council attention for more than a year.

The Downtown Master Plan, which the council adopted in March 2006, is very specific about the width of the Central Avenue sidewalks, Phelps said. He said scheduling the public process to change the street design "could be tight," but the master plan needs to be amended in order to change the sidewalk width.

Jenson noted that sidewalk widths were changed before without amending the master plan, and Kahle asked how the three-story parking structure at Second Street and Spokane Avenue called for in the master plan was canceled without amending the plan.

Phelps agreed that something was missed, but for legal reasons, "it's a good idea to go back and update the master plan."

Both Muhlfeld and Friel expressed hope that the new councilors would read the Downtown Master Plan and recognize the public process that led to the plan before making changes. Jenson acknowledged that point generally.

"I expect we'll be revisiting a number of issues," he said.