Columbia Falls Montana News | Columbia Falls Newspapers

As consumers nationally, worried about their jobs and the market turbulence, have cut back sharply on spending, the fight to bring new retail businesses to empty lots in Kalispell becomes increasingly difficult.

“If retailers are thinking about coming here, unless they’re way, way down the line and that money is allocated already, I think they’re simply going to delay because economic conditions don’t allow them to make those expenses today,” developer Phil Harris said.

Elaine Badley has worked at Semitool for the past eight years. Now, following her Nov. 10 layoff along with 99 other employees, she enters what she calls the “world of the unknown.” Indeed, with a shortage in federal funding for displaced workers’ programs and a destabilized job market, the Flathead is a land of uncertainty for those looking for work.

And there are a lot of people looking for work.

At the food bank in Kalispell, with just a week before the Thanksgiving holiday, Director Lori Botkin is stocking up on supplies: turkeys, huge bags of potatoes and loaves of bread. For the first time in her four-year tenure, she’s out of canned vegetables.

And in the food bank’s lobby there’s another first: An overflowing crowd of local citizens waiting patiently to take home their share of foodstuffs. Many of them are “middle-class families,” who have never needed the food bank before.

With about $2 million sunk into restoration work for a contamination that occurred more than a decade ago at the Flathead County landfill, administrators are working to purchase environmental insurance for the solid waste department – and prevent future clean-up costs.

“It’s insurance – until you need it it’s a waste of money, but when you do, it sure is worth it,” Dave Prunty, the county’s public works director, said. “We’ve taken a lot of steps to reduce the potential for a problem or release, but it’s still a landfill, so that potential will always be there.”

Republican commissioner-elect Jim Dupont and out-going commissioner Gary Hall may hail from the same political party, but local interest groups say they expect the commission to have a more conservative bent come January.

With only three commissioners, and several controversial issues set to carry over into next year, that could mean a significant rightward shift in county policy over the next six years.

I was unable to go to Billings for this game, but for those looking for a score in today's Class A football playoff game in Billings, here it is: Billings Central 27, Wildcats 13.

It was a full evening for the sizable crowd at Columbia Falls' Discovery Square late today, where the First Best Place Task Force and the Columbia Falls Chamber organized a celebration of the arrival of the 2008 Capitol Christmas Tree.

Your agenda for the evening looked something like this: Sign the banners on the 2008 Capitol Christmas Tree, peek through the window at the tree mounted on the huge trailer, listen to music from the Big Fish, eat Truby's pizza, drink coffee from the Cowgirls, participate in a flag raising officiated by the Civil Air Patrol, listen to the brass section of the Columbians, check out Jack Gladstone's new music written for today's event, dedicate the new Columbia Falls permanent Christmas tree as a thanks to Ron Buentemeier, check out the official CFalls ornament, gander at a 50+ year old iron lung being shown off by the Rotary (who are raising funds to match a Gates Foundation grant so they can finish off polio in the last four countries) and (whew) start thinking about your Christmas list.

Night of Lights is just around the corner (December 5th)...

The Flathead Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society and the First Best Place Task Force are starting a moist forest native plant garden west of the Glacier Discovery Square Building.

We need volunteers Friday, November 7th to prepare the site and amend the soil for spring planting. Please bring shovels, wheelbarrows, rakes and large garden forks or rock rakes if you have them. We hope to be done in few hours, but stop by even if you just have a bit of time.

To sign up and for more info: Call Rachel at 892-2446