Interim commissioner talks about experience

Cal Scott, a fifth-generation Flathead Valley native, has an arm’s-length resume that includes a congressman, a TV news program and numerous awards from around the country.

One of seven Republican candidates for the Flathead County commissioner position for the north valley district formerly held by Jim Dupont, Scott was selected by commissioners Dale Lauman and Pam Holmquist on April 16 to be the interim county commissioner after Dupont died on March 19.

“It’s the most exhilarating and exciting job I’ve been in for years,” he said.

After serving in the Army National Guard, Scott earned a civil engineering degree at the University of Nevada and then moved into the real estate business. For 29 years, he’s owned and managed real estate companies, a mortgage and an escrow company, and a financial counseling firm.

He took on the task in 1988-1989 for planning and formal incorporation of the city of Federal Way, south of Seattle, a community with a population greater than Flathead County’s that had never become a city.

In addition to producing a homeownership opportunities program in 1996 for Rep. Randy Tate, R-Washington, Scott worked as an investigative consultant in 1998 for the ABC News 20/20 program and nine state attorney generals.

Returning to the Flathead in 1999, Scott gave up on the idea of retiring and got active again in real estate, financial planning and education. He served as president of the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors in 2008 and currently teaches classes at Flathead Valley Community College on women’s enrichment, solutions to foreclosures and home sales by owner.

Most important to his new job was the time Scott spent from 2009-2011 as program coordinator on the county’s Connect The Dots project, which created a departmental operations reference manual for the county’s 49 departments and eight elected officials.

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” he said about his new job in the old courthouse building. “My whole life’s background was preparation for this job.”

Scott said he always had a desire for public service, but it’s even more important now.

“We’re facing crises, economic crises,” he said. “We need people to be engaged in government. Government is there to represent people, not vice versa.”

Scott’s experience in real estate gives him a long-term outlook, and it looks troubling. Real estate values across the county have dropped from 22 to 54 percent, which could cost the county 30 to 40 percent of its tax revenue.

“We’ll need to shrink government unless it’s essential or related to health and safety,” he said. “We’re all hurting, so we can’t just raise taxes.”

If he wins the election and fills the remaining two years in Dupont’s term, Scott says he’ll run again.

“The challenges we’re facing won’t end in two years,” he said. “These next two years will just be an educational process, teaching residents of the county that the county is a family, and government is just a part of that family. We’re all in it together.”

Scott also had a comment on Whitefish’s dispute with the county over the “doughnut” planning and zoning jurisdiction there.

“The manner in which it took place was a travesty,” he said. “The people in the doughnut have no voter say on those who can dictate what can be done with their property. That’s sad.”

He also has a comment on campaigning.

“A lot of candidates talk about ‘common sense,’” he said. “That’s political rhetoric. A county commissioner needs knowledge fostered by experience. How many other candidates have that? I’ll let the public answer that in June and November. I just pray the voters are informed.”