Parking Public Comment 2 from Karlene Khor7/23/26, 12:11 PM EXTERNAL Parking - Aimee Brunckhorst - Outlook
Outlook
EXTERNAL Parking
From K Khor <kkhor838@yahoo.com>
Date Thu 7/23/2026 11:35 AM
To Kalispell Meetings Public Comment <publiccomment@kalispell.com>
Dear Council Members:
I am in receipt of a reply from both Ryan and Dustin to my initial public comments via email regarding
the new parking fees, and a $70,000 expenditure on a parking surveillance system.
Many of the retail businesses downtown are not members of the Chamber, did not participate in the
survey and are not supportive of the outcomes submitted to Council by Forward Downtown Kalispell.
There is a disconnect between those businesses which are service businesses, and those businesses
which are retail businesses. They don't have the same concerns with respect to parking and their
customers behavior and needs on parking are not the same.
Retailers need marketing drivers to bring people downtown. A $20 parking fee is not a good marketing
tool/driver to encourage people to visit their downtown retailer. It certainly will drive people away to
other retailers outside of downtown who provide a parking experience which isn't painful to their
pockets.
Ryan notes in his reply to me assessments were sought which determined the voters, downtown business
owners and downtown building owners were wrong. There is no parking problem for tourists and
customers.
I doubt the validity of those assessments and would need to know the professional qualifications of
those making those assessments.
More importantly, did those assessments lead Council to determine the parking problem is an employee
parking problem?
If so, this is a slap in the face of all the downtown building owners, business owners, and voters who
know otherwise.
There is a parking problem downtown. Studies were done as far back as 1976 and if we could put all the
money that we've thrown at parking and traffic studies and now an additional $70,000 for a surveillance
parking software, we probably could've paid for a parking building.
Ryan also noted there is a planned hotel and planned parking building.
There has been no movement on the building of the hotel or of the parking building. It makes the
downtown businesses wonder if it's a figment of the imagination? Will it ever be a reality in their
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7/23/26, 12:11 PM
lifetime?
EXTERNAL Parking - Aimee Brunckhorst - Outlook
I am at a loss to why when council does long-term strategic planning why this city has not put into place
on the list a parking building.
The 1976 study identified the need for two parking buildings one on the east side of Main Street and one
on the west side of Main Street.
Meanwhile, the new parking fees will hurt retail business revenue without a doubt. I overheard tourists in
one of our local Main Street shops worried they would get a $20 ticket if they lingered much longer at
that shop.
I'm rather certain the software surveillance parking system is most probably going to do nothing more
than draw the ire of tourists, voters and bring lawsuits against the city. I hope you will table it now.
Waiting until next year to assess if the new fees and surveillance system had value or solved the parking
problem instead may very well put some business on Main Street out of business.
I am sure you think that's hyperbole but I would remind you the two weeks of closure during Covid and a
subsequent decrease in shoppers downtown drove two businesses to close and off of Main Street
fo reve r.
Karlene Khor
Kalispell
Sent from my iPhone
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