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Kidsports’ Conundrum

By Beacon Staff

With the clock ticking, the Kalispell City Council is expressing overwhelming support for keeping Kidsports Complex intact but is torn over how to help financially.

The council is split over using tax increment finance (TIF) funds and whether the city’s original plan to relocate athletic fields to a consolidated site is truly complete. Divergent sides emerged during two hours of discussion at a work session inside City Hall Monday night, and a follow-up work session is planned for early next month.

Councilor Tim Kluesner proposed using available TIF funds to fully pay for Kidsports’ $2.27 million permanent easement, which would cement the popular athletic complex in its current setting. It would also save its nonprofit organization several hundred thousand dollars in additional fees over a five-year span.

“Let’s get this paid for and done and do the right thing for the community,” Kluesner said.

Councilors Jeff Zauner and Phil Guiffrida III emphatically supported Kluesner’s proposal and agreed that Kalispell has not finished what it started in 1996, when the city uprooted 16 fields and made $2.79 million from land sales. The city gave $1.48 million to Kidsports, enough to relocate 10 of the 16 fields.

The original Kalispell City Airport/Athletic Complex Redevelopment Plan states, “The Kalispell City Council has made it clear that they are committed to replacing the ballfields at another location prior to the disposal or redevelopment of the ballfield properties.”

“We haven’t held up our part of the bargain,” Guiffrida said at the Monday meeting.

By not fulfilling that deal, Kalispell would be setting a bad precedent for future public-private partnerships, he added.

Mayor Tammi Fisher and Councilor Kari Gabriel both supported helping Kidsports but balked at paying the full amount using TIF funds, describing it as an unfair financial burden leveled on one section of town.

“I don’t know if south Kalispell is interested in funding all of this,” Fisher said.

The city’s Urban Renewal Agency Board, which includes a member with financial interests in south Kalispell where the TIF district exists, unanimously opposes the usage of TIF funds to pay for the entire permanent easement.

“I don’t believe in gutting the airport TIF for this,” Gabriel said.

There is currently $2.27 million available in the TIF district. The district generates roughly $500,000 annually from property tax revenues inside the boundary.

Fisher supports using the amount of TIF funds equivalent to what it would cost to cover the remaining six fields that were never paid for. But paying the full amount for a permanent easement would be essentially paying for the relocation twice, she said.

Fisher proposed combining a partial amount of TIF funds with general obligation bonds. Kidsports would pay off the bonds with annual lease payments, and also agree to make improvements at the complex, like additional parking and the completion of Four Mile Drive. The city would oversee Kidsports like Buffalo Hill Golf Club.

“That to me seems like the best way that city taxpayers will recoup their investment,” Fisher said.

Councilor Randy Kenyon agreed that paying for Kidsports’ permanent easement would need to come from a combination of sources, including TIF. Councilor Bob Hafferman opposed general obligation bonds.

“We have enough money. We can do it legally,” he said. “We just have to use our heads.”

The meeting attracted a larger-than-usual crowd that included several members of the Kidsports nonprofit organization, coaches and members of the business community. Everyone in attendance voiced support for Kidsports.

Mike Kazmier, the chief technology officer at Avail-TVN, which is located in south Kalispell, said his business benefitted from the TIF in the past. But he still supported the usage of TIF funds to help Kidsports, which benefits the entire community.

“I wouldn’t be able to recruit people if this community didn’t have facilities like Kidsports,” Kazmier said.

He disagreed with Fisher’s assessment that the city would be “double dipping” by using TIF funds to fully purchase an easement. He agreed that the relocation is not yet complete.

“I don’t think that sets a good precedent moving forward,” Kazmier said of the city holding out with TIF funds amid an unfinished deal.

He added, “I think (paying for the permanent easement is) a great use of TIF dollars.”

Dan Johns, the president and longtime catalyst of Kidsports, was the first to speak up in public comment. He expressed dismay at the idea that the relocation is complete, likening Kidsports’ situation to being kicked out of a house on private property and moved into a rental apartment.

Johns pointed out that establishing Kidsports on Section 36 state-owned school trust land spurred the city to annex the piece of property, which has burgeoned into a vibrant business district that financially benefits the school districts and the city.

He also strongly rebuffed the notion that this decision pits north and south Kalispell against each other.

“I’m up here on behalf of 3,000 kids. I don’t have any financial interest in south Kalispell, north Kalispell, central Kalispell or in the Kidsports area,” Johns said.

He added, “It’s not about jurisdiction.”

City staff will draft possible options to be reviewed and voted on in the next month. Kidsports’ first option payment for the permanent easement is due Jan. 1, 2013.