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Kalispell Still Undecided on Freedom House

By Beacon Staff

The Kalispell City Council will continue deliberating the future of a controversial west side facility for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts following a work session Monday where little consensus was evident. Complicating matters was the arrest of Freedom House’s board president, Randall Marr, on Thursday evening for violating probation and reportedly causing a drunken disturbance.

News of the arrest, first reported by KCFW, appeared to have council members feeling increasingly skeptical of voting in favor of issuing Freedom House a conditional use permit. (No votes are allowed at a work session.) But as deliberations went on, Mayor Tammi Fisher questioned whether it was even worth voting for a permit where the conditions imposed lacked any real enforcement power on the part of the city.

“For me it comes down to weighing having no regulation on this entity versus pretending to regulate it and giving a false sense of security to the neighborhood. Which is worse?” Fisher said. “I want to help; I want to do something and I just don’t know that we can.”

Freedom House, which has been operating since April at 1128 Third Ave. W., applied for a conditional use permit to operate a sober living facility for up to eight men recovering from substance abuse. But since Freedom House applied for the permit, the city has amended its zoning laws eliminating restrictions on more than four unrelated people living under one roof, which raises questions as to the necessity of a permit at all. Failure by the city to approve the permit could also make Kalispell vulnerable to a lawsuit for failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which applies to recovering addicts.

Nor can Freedom House be classified as a community residential facility, since it’s not licensed by any state or federal entity. Men can choose to live there who wish to stay at a sober, safe place where they can recover from addiction.

This lack of necessary oversight, however, is precisely what concerns neighbors of the facility, who question whether sexual or violent offenders are going to be residing at a house just outside the entrance to Flathead High School’s athletic stadium, Legends Field. These tensions were exacerbated when neighbors discovered a former vice president of the Freedom House board, who has since left, was a registered sex offender.

Phillip Guiffrida III, who owns property adjacent to Freedom House, called its organizers, “rehab profiteers” who organized the nonprofit corporation to enjoy, “all the protections of the ADA but none of the responsibility or oversight.”

“The people that stand before you to talk about Freedom House have profit on their mind,” Guiffrida said. “If this was a truly licensed community residential facility we would welcome it to our neighborhood because we know the oversight’s there.”

But Tara Norick, who manages the property rented for Freedom House, said she has had no problems with the tenants there and disputed the notion that they require a special permit to live there.

“This is the same as eight Christians living in a home, choosing to go to Bible study three times a week,” Norick said. “They are independent folks living in the community who have the right to be in any house in any neighborhood.”

Council members Randy Kenyon and Kari Gabriel also pointed out that violent and sexual offenders already live all over Kalispell, and the city can’t impose restrictions on where they reside. Kenyon said his research revealed 33 violent or sexual offenders living on Kalispell’s west side, and 59 offenders within a mile of Freedom House.

With the council undecided, Freedom House’s permit will come up again at a future work session, unless the application is withdrawn. As for Marr, Freedom House Resident Manager William Hawk called it, “a very unfortunate incident.”