Columbia Fall city council election: Duffy wants the city to grow through annexation

A member of the Columbia Falls City-County planning board is one of four candidates seeking three seats on the Columbia Falls City Council.

Steve Duffy, a native of Denver, Colorado, has lived here for 13 years with his wife, Mel. Duffy grew up in Denver, Colorado and has had several careers, including working as a certified air frame repairman for Boeing and as a sheet metal specialist for Continental Airlines while in Colorado. He also worked as the assistant to the city engineer development coordinator for the city of Westminster, Colorado in the city’s planning department.

Westminster is a suburb of Denver. He said that experience has helped him on the planning board and it will help him on the city council as well.

Duffy has been on the planning board now for four years and said his interest in city government has grown since then.

“I want to be part of a vibrant city that’s strong and growing,” he said last week.

He said the city needs to seriously consider annexation of properties outside its limits, — possibly to the south side of the Flathead River or west to U.S. Highway 2.

He claimed annexation would spur the growth, rather than the growth needing the annexation for services like city sewer and water.

He said he worked as the operations manager for Highlands Ranch Colorado, which did something similar outside of Westminster — converting a large ranch into several different tracts of housing and retail developments.

Columbia Falls could do something similar.

“If we develop it, people will come to the jobs,” he claimed.

He said he’d also like to see more heavy industrial development at the industrial park off Railroad Street. He said he thought the city’s growth policy, for the most part was well written and he’d like to see some high end housing come to the area, but it would likely have to be a planned development outside the current city limits.

He said he liked the current city council and thought they were doing a good job.

“It’s a pretty good bunch of folks,” he said. “They got it right on most issues.”