Planning board vacancies stymie meetings

The City-County Planning Board was unable to hear a pair of hot-button issues this month due to lack of a quorum.

With two members absent April 17, the board was forced to cancel its meeting. Agenda items included the 2nd Street Residences subdivision and a lakeshore variance for The Lodge at Whitefish Lake marina expansion. Both items will be postponed to the May 15 meeting.

“Assuming we can get a quorum then,” said planning director Dave Taylor. A quorum is the smallest number of board members who must be present at a meeting in order for decisions to be made.

The April meeting was the second to be canceled this year as vacant seats on the board remain unfilled.

“Everything starts bottling up,” Taylor said. “The work is done on our part, but projects are getting pushed back. I know The Lodge was hoping to get those boat slips in soon.”

Two county-appointed board seats remain open, while a single city-appointed seat became vacant last month when Zak Anderson resigned.

A pair of candidates for the city’s seat applied last week and council will interview them next month.

At one point, three of the four county seats were open. Rick Blake reapplied for his seat but later withdrew his name, Dennis Konopatzke resigned, and Ole Netteberg resigned after he moved to Kalispell. Diane Smith was the only county-appointed member on the board.

Taylor says former planning board chair Karen Reeves applied for one of the seats, but the county chose not to appoint her.

Whitefish City Council decided at their last meeting to take the matter into their own hands. According to state law and city code, a councilor or the mayor can fill an open seat on the planning board for up to three months at a time.

Council will make those appointments at their next meeting.

The six members currently on the board include chairman Greg Gunderson, Chad Philips, Diane Smith, Ken Stein, Vic Workman and John Ellis, who is a Flathead Conservation District appointment.

The board meets the third Thursday of every month at 6 p.m. at City Hall.