Citizen speaks with police

My name is Nick Ferring-ton, and as some of this community may know, I recently published and distributed petitions regarding the actions and activities of the Whitefish Police Department.

First of all, I would like to clarify that the main purpose of these petitions was an attempt to begin giving youths of this town the respect and treatment any grown adult should have from our police department.

An article published in the Pilot seemed to push the idea that this was about allowing underage drinking, cocaine and other irrelevant issues. I can assure you that is the furthest thing from the objective.

Rather than focusing on the issues brought forth to the Whitefish City Council and the Whitefish Pilot in an interview, the author of the article decided to place emphasis on my personal Myspace account, which caused a lot of misrepresentation of myself and the goals of my petition drive.

But moving forward, there has been substantial progress made regarding the concern of our police force. In the last week, a group of Whitefish youths (including myself) and an adult met with Police Chief Bill Dial, Officer Bridger Kelch and Whitefish City Council member Nick Palmer. We brought forth many concerns, such as citizens rights, profiling based on age and income, and other issues involving the community.

The meeting was extremely effective, with excellent communication and a much clearer understanding on both sides of the table.

Police Chief Bill Dial has instructed anybody who feels they are being harassed by a member of the Whitefish Police Department to call him immediately. He continued to tell me that if he catches any members of his force profiling, which is against the law, they will be looking for a new job.

Both Dial and Kelch were truly concerned with what issues were brought up, and want to move past being viewed as bad guys in the town of Whitefish. With proper communication between the citizens of this town and our city departments, I feel that progress can be made to make Whitefish the amazing place we have all known it to be.

Nick Ferrington is a student at the University of Montana-Missoula who also lives in Whitefish.