Columbia Falls mayoral race: Rallis wants big changes, business tax

John Rallis has big plans for Columbia Falls if elected mayor. He’d like to expand city hall, get rid of the city manager form of government, annex properties currently outside of the city limits and become a full-time mayor.

The Columbia Arms neighborhood resident said he’d raise taxes to accomplish some of these goals, including a tax on net business income and an occupation tax of about $9 per night on hotel and motel visitors in the city.

“I want to make Columbia Falls a better city,” he said in an interview last week.

He claimed current city government is run like a “good old boys network.”

“The city could be a big city and a wealthy city,” he claimed.

But to do that there has to be some tax increases, he said.

“You’ve got to go to the people and ask for money,” he said.

Rallis is an Army veteran and said he currently lives on Social Security and his Army benefits.

He lived most of his life in Washington state, growing up in Yakima and moved here in 2009.

As a businessman in Washington, he said he was an inventor and mechanical engineer by trade. He has a patent on an automated cargo loading system — confirmed by the U.S. Patent office.

If elected, Rallis said he wants to do away with the city manager form of government and would, instead, be a full-time mayor, with an executive secretary and receptionist.

“We’d take over the office,” he said.

He also wants to expand the physical building of city hall, adding two levels atop the current building, as well a single level atop the police department and parking lot.

He’d also like to see the city annex property currently owned by Weyerhaeuser where the Cedar Palace office building is. The county recently considered buying the property and building a jail there, but pulled the plug after public opposition.

Rallis also said he’d also put parking meters in downtown and raise the maximum height allowed for a building on Nucleus Avenue to at least 60 feet and upwards of 90 feet. He said that would give developers the opportunity to maximize their investment in downtown.

The city’s height limits right now are about 35 feet in the commercial district, the idea being to preserve the city’s viewshed.