City to recognize Vietnam veterans March 29
With about 20 Vietnam veterans in the audience, Columbia Falls Mayor Don Barnhart and the city council proclaimed March 29, 2018 as Vietnam Veterans Day.
“On January 12, 1962, the United States Army pilots lifted more than 1,000 South Vietnamese service members over jungle and underbrush to capture a National Liberation Front stronghold near Saigon. Operation Chopper marked America’s first combat mission against the Viet Cong and the beginning of one of our longest and most challenging wars. Through more than a decade of conflict that tested the fabric of our nation, the service of our men and women stood true. Fifty years after that mission, we honor the more than 3 million Americans who served; we pay tribute to those we have laid to rest, and we reaffirm our dedication to showing a generation of veterans the respect and support of a grateful nation,” the preamble of the declaration notes.
March 29 was chosen because on March 29, 1973, the last American troops left the country.
After making the proclamation, the vets in the audience got a standing ovation.
Councilman Mike Shepard said an event is planned at the Montana Veterans Home on March 29. Barnhart also urged Columbia Falls citizens to recognize the event in their own way as well.
In other city news:
- The council will hold a public hearing April 2 at 7 p.m. on the expiration of several planned unit development overlays in the city’s planning jurisdiction. The overlays were crafted during the last housing boom, but were never built.
- Council will hold a public hearing on the same date to allow the Riverwood Estates homeowners association to sell a strip of land along the Flathead River that is 30 feet wide by 286 feet long. The land was parkland associated with the subdivision when it was first crafted by the county. Now the subdivision is in the city limits and the homeowners association is disbanding and there’s no one to maintain the land, so it’s selling it.
- The city’s fish pond project at River’s Edge Park will now likely happen next fall. The city, which was working with the Flathead Land Trust, has been given permission to extend a $100,000 grant to build the pond until the fall. Logistically, with spring breakup, doing it now wasn’t going to work. Several local contractors have agreed to help with the project. The city’s insurance will cover the pond when it’s completed and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has also agreed to stock the pond.