Flathead Valley Business: Kalispell, Montana News

At a joint work session of the Kalispell City Council and Planning Board last week, members of both indicated it’s time for the city to focus its annexation policy more on infill and less on extending to the north and south, as it did during recent years of rapid expansion.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Councilman Tim Kluesner said. “We probably shouldn’t have gone out as far as we did.”

GREAT FALLS – A Great Falls man who says he was wrongly fired from his job for using medical marijuana has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against his former employer.

Mike Babbitt in a complaint filed earlier this month against Loaf-n-Jug says he was discriminated against, lost wages and suffered other monetary damages.

As the housing industry recovers in the Flathead Valley, students at Flathead and Glacier high schools have decided to build a village – or at least two houses for a village.

At the Flathead Building Association’s Home and Garden Showcase on March 19-21 at the Flathead County Fairgrounds, six playhouses will be displayed as the expo’s centerpiece. Collectively, they will be called the “DreamBuilders’ Village.”

A group of frustrated Flathead Valley residents are calling for the resignation of every member of the Flathead County Fair Board, a movement that comes on the heels of the board’s decision to not renew then-Fair Manager Jay Scott’s contract.

A crowd of roughly 100 people gathered at Gardner Auction Service on March 11 to air their grievances and attempt to get organized in their efforts to get Scott reinstated. Gerry Banzet led the charge, asserting that firing Scott was unjust and immoral.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is postponing his long-scheduled Asian trip for a few days to make a final push for passage of historic legislation reinventing the health care system.

Obama's decision, revealed Friday morning by senior administration official, came amid assertions by leading Hill Democrats that they're resolving disputes over the measure that has been through a host of rewrites. At the same time, these Democrats said decisions remain on how to subsidize health insrance coverage. And they confirmed they're still hunting for sufficient votes to get it through.

ST. CHARLES, Mo. – Democrats claimed momentum Wednesday in their drive to enact the sweeping health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama, citing near agreement on crucial issues despite persistent Republican efforts to knock them off stride.

Obama himself, rallying support outside Washington for the second time this week, shouted to a crowd in Missouri, "The time for talk is over. It's time to vote."

Northwest Montana’s unemployment rolls rose precipitously in January to the highest levels since the beginning of the recession. Flathead County’s non-seasonally adjusted 13.2 percent rate eclipsed the previous high set in March 2009 of 12.7 percent, according to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. What’s more, neighboring Sanders and Lincoln counties saw their employment rates creep above 17 percent in the first month of the year, further evidence that the worst recession in a generation hasn’t loosened its grip on the region.

Statewide, the unemployment rate also continued an upward climb with a slight increase in January. The state's unemployment increased to 6.8 percent from 6.7 percent in December – which was up from 6.4 percent in November.

BOZEMAN – NorthWestern Energy is facing another lawsuit stemming from a natural-gas explosion last year that killed one woman and destroyed half a city block.

Steve Zabel, who owns Montana Trails Gallery, says the energy company and its senior manager of gas system integrity knew or should have known that a threaded connector in the service line behind the gallery was substandard and could fail. Zabel's art gallery was destroyed in the blast.