09-18-20 City Manager Report1
City of Kalispell
OFFICE OF THE CITY
MANAGER
Information Memorandum
9/18/2020
1. Parks Department
Our forestry crew is nearing completion of pruning the 700 block of 3rd Avenue East. A
contractor has now moved from the west side of downtown Kalispell to the east side,
removing hangers and stubs from the windstorm several months ago.
Park crews continue with seasonal maintenance tasks including turf maintenance, making
facility repairs, painting of picnic tables and doors, weed pulling in planter beds, and
preparing for seasonal closures. Crews at KYAC are completing dirt work to the
baseball/softball pods including
edging of all 19 fields. They have
also begun painting lines for fall
soccer. With all seven of the new
fields on the North end of KYAC
now seeded in, some of their time
has been spent managing irrigation
and mowing the new fields.
Cairo’s Kids Afterschool Program at Elrod Elementary School started Monday, August
31. Due to COVID and limited transportation (currently no busing is available from
Peterson or Edgerton), participation was low at the beginning of the week (averaging 15
children per day). However, we did see an increase in registrations throughout the week
and finished the week averaging 20 children per day. We are scheduled to talk with the
school district transportation office at the end of September to determine if more
transportation options would be available.
We have received approval from Kalispell Public Schools and
Flathead County City Health Department to move forward
with Little Dribblers basketball program (preK-2nd grade) on
Saturdays at Russell and Peterson Schools from October 17 to
November 21. We will be adding the following
policies/procedures to the program to follow Kalispell Public
School athletic guidelines.
➢ We will limit attendance to two spectators per
participant in uniform for basketball due to COVID-19
precautions. We will have staff at a table outside the
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gym entrance checking in each child and spectators prior to them entering the
gym.
➢ All spectators will be required to wear a mask/face covering.
➢ All people in attendance must wear masks unless they are physically participating
on the court.
➢ All spectators also must maintain six feet of social distancing except among
family units.
➢ We will schedule an extra 30 minutes between games to stagger entering and
exiting the facility to avoid congested or "bottleneck" areas.
Registration for Little Dribblers basketball opened Friday, September 4 and will close
Friday, October 2.
2. Police Department
Officer Will Appel has accepted a position at the Kalispell Police Department and will
begin on September 29. Will joins us from Walnut Creek, CA, and brings 10 years prior
law enforcement experience. This will bring the Kalispell Police Department to full
staffing.
As of September 15, the Kalispell Police Department has responded to 23,083 calls for
service. This compares with 26,269 in 2019, and 24,865 in 2018.
The co-responder program has started with several connections and referrals that have
been made with individuals in Flathead County, helping to assist them with on-going
mental health issues.
The Kalispell Police Department has partnered with the professional policy program,
Lexipol. This will aid in modernizing, vetting, and tracking policy. The implementation
will happen over a multiple month process to fully develop policy specific to the
Kalispell Police Department. Lexipol also provides a training component to keep officers
current in policy and best practices.
3. Public Works
Solid Waste
Beginning the first week of August the Solid
Waste trucks were outfitted with RFID (radio
frequency identification) tags for the new scale
system at the County Landfill. RFID tags are
placed on the trucks' windshields; the vehicles are
identified instantly as they arrive at the weigh
scale station by truck number, company name,
type of waste, time, and date. Although the new
process had a few issues to work through during
the first week, the process has dramatically
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decreased the wait time for the drivers at the landfill.
Woodland Ave and 2nd St E/Conrad Drive Intersection Improvement Project
The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT), in coordination with the City of
Kalispell would like to invite the public to view and comment on the option identified to
improve the Woodland Avenue and 2nd Street East/Conrad intersection. The project is
generally located at the southwest corner of Woodland Park. MDT and the City of
Kalispell evaluated options to improve the intersection of 2nd Street East/Conrad Drive
and Woodland Avenue and have determined that the safest and most efficient way to
reduce the number and severity of crashes is to use a small single-lane roundabout.
MDT in collaboration with the City are
hosting hosting a Virtual Open House until
October 2nd, 2020. The Open House can be
found at:
https://mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/woodland/
The public is encouraged to attend the
project information event. For more
information, please contact Missoula District Administrator Bob Vosen at (406) 523-
5802 or Project Design Engineer J.R. Taylor at (406) 444-7636. Members of the public
may submit written comments to the Montana Department of Transportation Missoula
office at PO Box 7039, Missoula, MT 59807-7039.
The goals of this project are to:
• Improve safety
• Maintain a 25 MPH speed limit
• Minimize impacts to adjacent properties including historic properties
• Improve the pedestrian and bicycle environment
• Accommodate school buses and emergency service vehicles
4. Information Services
IT and GIS staff worked with consultant support to stand up the City’s ArcGIS enterprise
environment. The City upgraded from the previous ArcGIS Server platform to the
ArcGIS enterprise portal platform. The enterprise portal provides the foundation for the
City’s GIS maps. The portal environment supports producing maps created by City staff
to be seen by field staff or the public as the updates are made by City staff. City staff
will choose to setup a map either as a static map or feature map that displays edits.
Licensing for City staff to use Collector in the field or ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap in the
office is no longer restricted.
IT and other City staff continue to support the audio video requirements for web based
public meetings in the Council Chambers. New hardware has been acquired, imaged, and
configured to support the Council meeting for Monday 9/21.
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5. Planning Department
The Planning Board met on September 9 and heard one application request from Sarah
and Alexander Musso for annexation and initial zoning of R-4 (Residential) of one lot
containing approximately 0.17 acres with an existing single-family residence. The
annexation is part of their request to connect to an adjacent city sanitary sewer main. The
property is located at 904 8th Avenue West. The Board did recommend approval of the
request and their recommendation will be forwarded to the Council for consideration at
their October 5 meeting.
The Planning Board also held a work session on a request from Hammerquist and
Caselegno, LLC for a Commercial Planned Unit Development (“PUD”) overlay on two
lots containing approximately 2.6 acres of land located at 145 and 151 Snowline Lane.
The lots are currently vacant and zoned B-5 (Industrial-Business). The intent would be to
use the rear parcel for a construction laydown yard and later develop the front parcel.
The property has a PUD placeholder designation, which means that, with limited
exceptions, any use or development of the property requires a full PUD submittal.
The work session was intended for information purposes to inform both the public and
the planning board about the various aspects of the project. The formal public hearing for
the PUD is scheduled for Tuesday, October 13.
City staff will also be meeting with A&E Architects this week. A&E Architects was
chosen to provide the professional planning and architectural services for the creation of
historic design standards for Downtown Kalispell. The meeting is intended to outline the
planning process moving forward over the next few months, including the process for
incorporating public input.
6. Building Department
In the last 2 weeks, we have issued permits for 10 single-family homes, 8 townhomes and
2 duplexes. This brings the total of new single-family/duplex and townhouse units for the
year to 203, compared to 106 last year at this time.
There have been 132 multi-family housing units issued so far this year. At the end of
2019, the building department had issued permits for a total of 84 multi-family units.
There was a total of 125 combined building and/or fire inspections completed in the last 2
weeks.
Residential – 55 Plumbing – 13
Commercial – 14 Mechanical - 10
Electrical – 17 Fire - 16
7. Community Development
Work continues on the Airport Road and 18th Street West Project. Sidewalk and curb
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installation is complete on 12th Street West. Preparations continue for pouring concrete
curb, gutter, driveways and sidewalks on Airport Road. Parking lots at Airport Road and
1st Avenue West are prepared for concrete and asphalt work. Construction of the new
17th Street West is underway. Work will move to 18th Street West next.
In coordination with the City, the EPA
conducted a phase II environmental site
assessment at the northeast tank basin of
the former CHS Agronomy Center located
at 55 4th Avenue East North. The work
included removal of the fuel pumps,
associated underground piping, and three
20,000 gallon fuel tanks. Soil and water
samples taken have been submitted for laboratory testing and results are expected in
about two weeks with a phase II report to follow by Weston Solutions. Over the coming
weeks the tanks and soils at the site will be disposed.