KM Ranch paving plan scrapped

A petition to pave 6 miles of KM Ranch Road was scrapped last week, but the dust from a bitter neighborhood rift has yet to settle.

An initiative to use a Rural Special Improvement District to fund the $3.9 million paving project was withdrawn Nov. 5 after a swell of neighborhood opposition rose up this fall.

A committee of KM Ranch residents led by Marshall Friedman had worked for about three years to get the gravel road west of Whitefish paved.

They proposed establishing a Rural Special Improvement District that included 157 lots. The cost would be split between the county and the property owners. The county intended to chip in 64.5 percent of the $3.9 million project, leaving KM Ranch Road property owners within the designated district to pay the remaining $1.4 million.

The annual cost was estimated at $650 per lot over the 20-year life of the special district.

Opponents said that was too expensive, and that paving the road would degrade their rural lifestyle.

As opposition became louder over the past month, Friedman decided to withdraw the petition and step away from his leadership role. He said paving the road wasn’t worth the price of a torn neighborhood.

County Administrator Mike Pence said county commissioners won’t pursue the RSID without the support of the neighbors.

“This does stop the project from moving forward,” he said.

Friedman was sharp in his tone when talking with the Pilot last week about his decision to nix the paving initiative and remove himself from the discussion.

According to Friedman, neighbors leading the campaign against paving the road simply don’t like him.

“This is as much a personal vendetta against me as it is about paving the road,” Friedman said.

“The things they don’t like about me — they said they would make them a major consideration in the campaign to stop the paving.”

Friedman, who is a stunt pilot, said neighbors against the paving have cited the noise from his airplane when he flies over the valley as one of the reasons they don’t care for him.

He noted the effort to establish an RSID has been going on for years. He questioned why the opposition rose up only recently.

“Where were they three years ago, two years ago or even six months ago?” he asked. “Why did they wait until now?”

Longtime KM Ranch Road resident Jolene Mikesell and her husband, Marvin, opposed the paving proposal. Mikesell said the cost of the RSID would have crippled their small farm. She estimated the cost over 20 years would have been $54,000 and would have forced them to sell their property.

Yet, Mikesell said costs weren’t the only reason she opposed the paving. She contends that paving the road will create a bypass around Whitefish and increase speeding and traffic.

Friedman said drivers already speed on the road and that the suggested increase in traffic is being blown out of proportion.

“We can have 350 cars a day kicking up dust and being noisy, or we can have 450 cars with no dust and no noise,” he said.

Despite the differences, Friedman said he attempted to reach out to the opposition so the neighborhood could work collaboratively on the issue. He planned to hold a community meeting to “get everyone together to work it out,” and he even looked at bringing in a mediator.

“I thought that if we worked together, we could come up with a good decision,” he said. “It was a way to get people in the same room, talking and healing — but everyone had to be willing to lose.”

To address the issue of cost, Friedman formulated a plan to raise money so each property owner would only have to pay for a single parcel.

“It needed to be a level playing field with everyone paying for one parcel and that’s it,” he said.

He said $36,000 was raised in one day.

But the opposition told Friedman they didn’t want to take “charity or welfare,” and that they were encouraging others to not attend his meeting.

That’s when Friedman called off the meeting and decided to withdraw the plan.

“It killed the collaborative effort,” he said. “They torpedoed any chance of this working.”

Mikesell called the withdrawal of the petition “an answer to our prayers.”

She said the community vote was far in favor of not paving, which is why the initiative was scrapped.

“I’m thankful that our prayers were answered,” she said. “It was very encouraging to us how many people came along beside us, even though they may not have even been affected by the RSID outcome.”

Mikesell says the neighborhood is moving on and that she considers the issue to be over.

Friedman, however, describes the neighborhood as still being divided, but he’s hopeful fences can be mended going forward.

“The real issue here is the neighborhood, not the road,” he said. “That’s more important to me than paving the road.”

“I still think a lot of people are in favor of getting together.”

“This story is not over,” he added.