source:
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/loca ... 3ce6c.htmlKalispell Council approves group home permitPosted: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 8:32 pm
By TOM LOTSHAW/The Daily Inter Lake | 2 comments
At a sometimes-contentious meeting Monday night, Montana Academy got approval from the Kalispell City Council for its fourth group home in the city.
Council members said their hands were tied by state law.
Located at 527 Second Avenue West, the home will house up to eight youths ages 17 to 19.
The group homes are used to transition students after they graduate from the academy’s fully accredited high school, located on a remote, 400-acre campus in Lost Prairie west of Kalispell.
Montana Academy is a therapeutic boarding school with more than 70 employees and an annual payroll in excess of $3 million. It serves privately placed youths from all over the country.
“State law says we have to treat them as a residential use in a residential zone, and as such, we can’t put any more conditions on them than we would a single family use,” Planning Director Tom Jentz told the council. “We [also] cannot deny them outright because they are something different.”
Following a Planning Board meeting on the issue held weeks earlier, a handful of Kalispell residents continued to speak out against the proposed group home, pointing to their safety and zoning concerns and arguing that the group home could be better located someplace else.
Mickey Lapp told the council that Montana Academy is forcing itself on a neighborhood that doesn’t want it there. “The city’s hands may well be tied here. Montana Academy knows this, banks on it, literally,” she said.
The group home also had its supporters.
Jim Arestad told the council he opposed a Montana Academy group home on Fifth Avenue East when it went in next door to his house 10 years ago. “I have never had better neighbors than them. I want to lend my support. I think they run a very good program,” he said.
Pointing to what they called “appalling” and “disgraceful” statements being made by some people against the group home, John Santa and John McKinnon, the owners and founders of Montana Academy, spoke in defense of their employees, their school and its “bright and capable” students.
Students placed in the group homes are well-behaved and actively involved in the community, going to college, going to work and volunteering in a number of roles, Santa said.
“We’ve created a school that probably has the best reputation of any school in the country of this type,” he said.
McKinnon told the council that the three other group homes have proven that Montana Academy is reputable and responsible.
“As soon as you tell people they don’t have a choice, it comes up if you’re good enough or if it’s safe,” McKinnon told the council. “Those are legitimate points of discussion. But in the last 10 years those questions have been answered in a definitive way. Our kids have been exemplary citizens. I don’t think there’s any evidence to the contrary.”
Following the public comments, the council voted 8-0 to OK a conditional use permit for the group home.
Several council members and Mayor Tammi Fisher said they object to the state Legislature tying their hands on such issues.
“I don’t believe there’s a valid argument being made against the group home tonight,” council member Duane Larson said.
Council member Tim Kluesner called Montana Academy a fantastic program for troubled youths, and said he has a real problem with the “not in my backyard” response from some people.
“We need to do these types of things. Whether your neighbor is old or young or disabled or disenfranchised, it’s our job to try to pull together. That’s what a community is all about,” he said.
Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at
tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.
