Forum contrasts council candidates
The four candidates seeking election to Whitefish City Council gave their take on a variety of issues facing the city during a forum last week.
Incumbents Richard Hildner and Frank Sweeney and challengers John Repke and Katie Williams are all running for the three seats on council.
Candidate Barton Slaney was invited, but did not attend the forum after telling the Pilot he was dropping out of the race. He later contacted the Pilot to say he is back in the race.
The Whitefish Pilot and the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce sponsored the event, which involved each candidate being asked the same question on issues facing the city.
Hildner was first elected to council in 2011. Sweeney was appointed to the council in 2009 before later losing his bid for re-election. He successfully earned a seat on council in the 2011 election.
Repke is semi-retired with a background as a financial analyst in the private sector. He has lived full-time in Whitefish for a year. Williams is the manager of The Draught House at Great Northern Brewing Co. and has lived in Whitefish since 2010.
Each candidate was asked to make a statement about themselves and explain their qualifications for the council position.
John Repke
He said the city has taken on significant financial commitments and there is more planned. He touted his background in corporate finance in being able to assist with those issues.
“I think that expertise is unique to the council and could be valuable to the council,” he said.
Richard Hildner
“I’ve spent my career in public service,” he said. “All the way from my time in the Forest Service and the Peace Corps, to teaching and my volunteer work.”
Katie Williams
She said she is the embodiment of what makes up the “grit of Whitefish.”
“I’m young and I am very inexperienced,” she said. “But I am a hard working Montanan who leads a small business in Whitefish. I bring the perspective of those who are not being represented in city government.”
Frank Sweeney
“I live and work here,” he said. “I spend my time working in the interest of my neighbors to preserve the heritage of Whitefish and its ability to thrive and grow as a special place.”
Has the city spent its tax-increment finance funds appropriately and how do you think the remaining balance should be spent?
Richard Hildner
“I do think the city has been appropriate in spending the TIF,” he said.
He said past councils have been smart in how they’ve spent and saved the TIF money.
“Council needs to plan for those future expenditures because when the TIF expires, so does the money,” he said. “There may be some ways to use the money, such as acquisitions at City Beach. We might be able to improve the economic viability of Whitefish with the remaining funds.”
Katie Williams
She said she supports how the city has been spending TIF funds.
“However, I do believe there is some spending within the TIF in terms of City Hall that may not be appropriate,” she said. “I think the TIF can be used for economic development and to increase the tax base.”
She questioned whether spending TIF money on constructing a new City Hall is the best way to stimulate economic growth.
She suggested that TIF funds need to go toward a task force looking at ways to providing affordable housing for the city.
Frank Sweeney
“I believe we have spent the TIF funds wisely,” he said. “Using the funds for building a new City Hall was more than appropriate.”
He said the remaining TIF funds need to be spent on infrastructure projects to assist businesses or toward affordable workforce housing.
“One of the things we can do with TIF is to improve blighted areas and I think that would be some of the things we can do,” he said.
John Repke
He said the city has spent TIF funds wisely. Planning of the city has been successful so far, he noted.
“I think it’s appropriate to spend the money on City Hall,” he said. “Having City Hall downtown can be an economic driver.”
He said spending TIF funds on affordable housing could be an economic driver and a bike path network in town could be beneficial.
Should Whitefish citizens have the chance to vote on the construction of the $14.95 million City Hall and parking structure?
John Repke
He said the city has been very well planned and that includes City Hall.
“If you put everything up to a public vote, I’m not sure how you govern or how you get things done,” he said. “I think it has been fully vetted and it’s time to move forward.”
Richard Hildner
He said the City Hall and parking garage does not rise to the need of a public vote.
“This has been in the works for a long, long time,” he said. “It’s been part of the downtown master plan for a long time. Council has taken all of the necessary steps to make sure this project comes in at or under budget and on-time.”
Katie Williams
She said the City Hall and parking garage construction issue is not “black and white.”
“Budget items should not go before the electorate,” she said. “I think that hamstrings development and the process.”
Frank Sweeney
He said if the citizens wanted a referendum on the issue the time for that was four years ago.
“The recommendation has been that citizens want City Hall downtown,” he said. “City Council analyzed the alternatives and all of the economics came out as putting City Hall where it is.”
The Whitefish Lake Institute released a study in 2012 that confirms septic contamination of Whitefish Lake. While the lake is considered safe, what role should the city play in a cleanup effort?
Frank Sweeney
He said the role of the city is to prevent any future damage to the lake.
“We have commissioned studies for the areas around the lake, which are most at-risk,” he said. “We need to determine what the solution might be.
He said running sewer out to the end of the lake is probably very expensive and not efficient, but that the studies will likely show what is the best way to protect the lake.
John Repke
He said failing septics is an issue with the lake, but so is aquatic invasive species and development run-off.
“There is quiet a bit of pressure on the lake,” he said. “The lake does fall within the city limits and it’s clearly our responsibility to play a role in doing what we can early on to try to set the situation right.”
Katie Williams
She said she would need to learn more about the issue.
“But I do know that the lake is important to Whitefish and is important in terms of tourist dollars,” she said. “We need to protect our water source and our environment and the city needs to help with that.”
Richard Hildner
“As goes the lake, so goes Whitefish,” he said. “The lake is our most important resources in terms of how we see ourselves in the future.”
He said it’s important for the city to do whatever it can to protect the lake, including extending sewer and water services to those residents on septic systems. He said there needs to be a septic inspection program that tests septic systems at the time of the sale or remodel of a property.
What is the city’s role in addressing affordable workforce housing?
John Repke
“The community is much richer and healthier if it has a full spectrum of people in the community,” he said. “We’re at a good starting point to have business leaders get together with other leaders to talk about what can be done.”
He said the city could play a role by waiving fees.
Frank Sweeney
He said the city has tried to generate workforce housing, but the city needs to identify if the need is for long-term or short-term housing. He said the recent summit on affordable housing was a beginning with the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce taking the lead in finding solutions.
“There might be TIF dollars that can be spent on it,” he said. “We need to recognize and recruit the businesses that have these needs and get them together to solve the problem.”
Richard Hildner
He said the city should explore some fee waivers and use of TIF money to support affordable housing, and find ways to purchase land to develop workforce housing.
“Now is the time to move from words to action,” he said.
Katie Williams
She said in her job as manager of The Draught House at Great Northern Brewery, she sees lack of affordable workforce housing impacting people.
“This issue is very near and dear to my heart,” she said. “My employees are not living in Whitefish and they’re commuting.”
She said the city should look at waiving impact fees and using TIF money to support affordable housing. She said the citizens and business owners need to work together to find solutions.
“We are adding hotels and increasing the service industry as we speak and yet we don’t have housing,” she said. “How are we going to keep our workforce here?”
Whitefish has been described as having “grit.” How would you define the grit of Whitefish and what can be done to preserve that?
Katie Williams
“Those of us who chose to live here in Whitefish and chose to live in Montana, are those who have grit,” she said. “A lot of us are sacrificing salary for the quality of living here — we want to be here, we want to play outside. The grit is hard working people invested in the community.”
She said by maintaining development and keeping young families in the valley that will keep the grit in Whitefish.
Richard Hildner
“The authenticity of a working town is the grit of Whitefish,” he said. “We are originally a logging and railroad town, and it is the hard work and community spirit that provides the grit of Whitefish.”
He said the unique character of Whitefish needs to be preserved because that’s what drives the community economically.
John Repke
He said the grit of Whitefish comes from the fact that it doesn’t seem “super polished” and it’s authentic.
“I think this gets back to affordable housing,” he said. “Other mountain towns have dealt with this and we can look at how they dealt with it, to adapt it to Whitefish to keep the diversity.”
Frank Sweeney
He said the city has done a good job with its zoning and evaluating its corridor study on Highway 93 West to ensure Whitefish doesn’t become “cookie-cutter.”
“Those are the tools that Whitefish has and will continue to use as we go forward,” he said.
Did the city make the best decision by asking voters to approve an increase in the resort tax to help finance a conservation easement to protect Haskill Basin?
Frank Sweeney
“It was an elegant solution to a complex problem,” he said. “It was important for the city to preserve Haskill Basin and our drinking water source.”
He said using the resort tax was the best way to raise funds for the conservation easement.
John Repke
He said he supports preserving Haskill Basin, but would have like to see more discussion about how it was financed.
“Bonding the resort tax carries an interest rate that is about double what an interest rate would be for a bond tied to water rates or property taxes,” he said. “In the end, we did the right thing with Haskill Basin, but was the resort tax the way to do it? I would have liked to have seen more discussion on it.”
Katie Williams
She said the overwhelming number of voters that approved the increase in the resort tax showed the support for it.
“We wanted to protect our water source,” she said. “We wanted to have clean drinking water and conserve the land for future generations.”
Richard Hildner
“The voters said ‘yes’,” he said. “I think it was absolutely critical and super important that we preserve Haskill Basin.”
The resort tax also is reducing property taxes, he noted.