11-18-22 City Manager Report1
City of Kalispell
OFFICE OF THE CITY
MANAGER
Information Memorandum
11/18/2022
1. Public Works
MS4 Permit Adopt-a-Drain Program
Adopt-a-Drain is Kalispell’s newest volunteer
stormwater involvement program. Created by the City
with support from Flathead Basin Commission, the
program sets up residents to help improve water quality
and decrease localized flooding by being a steward of a
storm drain. This program also helps Kalispell maintain
compliance with the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer
System Permit administered by the Montana Department
of Environmental Quality.
The Adopt-a-Drain program provides residents with a way to help keep our local
waterbodies clean by helping to reduce pollutants,
including nutrients from yard or pet waste as well as trash,
from getting into the stormwater system. Through the
program, you can sign up to adopt a storm drain in your
neighborhood.
Participating in the program is simple. Visit our website
for more info on how to join and adopt a drain. You can
even adopt more than one. Participants get a free toolkit
with everything you need to clean your drain.
To learn more, check out our short informational video and website.
2. Police Department
Captain Jordan Venezio participated in an IMPACT Montana Meeting on Tuesday,
November 8 in Kalispell. The mission of IMPACT Montana is to help service members,
veterans, first responders and their families define their purpose, connect with health and
community solutions, and strive for what they value.
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As of November 16, the Kalispell Police Department has dealt with 1,117 Criminal
Trespass calls. This compares with total yearly calls of 1,183 in 2021, 848 in 2020, and
649 in 2019. Many of the calls include individuals in mental health crisis, substance
abuse crisis, or co-occurring symptoms.
Detective Sergeant Karen Webster and Detective Chad Sweigart attended continuing
education in child forensic interviewing. The Children’s Alliance and the Montana
Department of Justice MCSART program sponsored this training in Missoula. The
manager of Forensic Interview Research and Education in Baltimore, Crimson Barocca,
was the trainer. The facility in Baltimore that she works at has a staff of 10 and conducts
almost 1,000 forensic interviews of children per year. During COVID, they continued to
conduct forensic interviews at their facility using tele-forensic interviews. Students were
updated on the emerging research, policy, and practice of conducting interviews over
video. The training also was to update Montana MDT’s (Multi-Disciplinary Teams) on
the current standards of forensic interviewing based on ongoing research about the impact
of different interviewing techniques and the quality of disclosures.
Detectives cases assigned year to date stand at 598. This compares with 503 in 2021, and
391 in 2020.
Total calls for service stand at 31,698. This compares with 30,929 in 2021, and 28,505 in
2020.
In the last year, the Co-Responder (CR1) responded to 389 calls assisting law
enforcement. 239 of those calls were in assistance to the Kalispell Police Department.
3.Fire Department
From the period of November 1 to November 15, the Fire Department had 217 responses.
Of these, there were 150 medical incidents, 20 downed-wire incidents, 6 Motor vehicle
accident with injuries, 8 Fire alarm activations-smoke scares, 9 public assists, 5 Haz-Mat
incidents, 1 Chimney Fire, and 13 dispatched and canceled.
Aerial Ladder training occurred over a 2-day period for all Engineers and Acting
Engineers in cooperation with Montana State Fire Services Training. This course
involved spotting and laddering commercial businesses, multi-unit residential units and
rescuing victims out of multi-story structures.
Chief Pearce recently taught “First Amendment Audit” class to public works employees.
Administration is working on data collection for the Center for Public Safety
Management (CPSM) report.
The Fire Department recently disposed of surplus equipment, including the old SCBA
compressor, old SCBA units and masks, an old utility pickup and a water tender that no
longer had a need.
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4.Building Department
In the last 2 weeks, we have issued permits for 5 single-family homes. This brings the
total of new single-family/duplex and townhouse units for the year to 136.
There have been 464 multi-family housing units issued so far this year. Last year, at this
time, we had issued 560 multi-family housing units.
There was a total of 130 combined building and/or fire inspections completed in the last 2
weeks.
Residential – 50 Plumbing – 12
Commercial – 25 Mechanical - 13
Electrical – 13 Fire – 17
5.Community Development
The annual Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Community Needs
Assessment Hearing was held on November 10. The purpose of the hearing is to obtain
the views of community residents, especially low/moderate income residents, regarding
community development needs and priorities of the City of Kalispell and Flathead
County for economic development, housing and neighborhood revitalization and public
facilities. The CDBG program is administered by the State of Montana Department of
Commerce and will make available to eligible local governments funding for housing,
economic development, public facilities, public infrastructure, and planning activities,
with the principal purpose of benefitting low/moderate income persons. The hearing
provided information about the CDBG program and allowed for citizen participation in
the development of any proposed grant applications for the coming year.