KALISPELL — The city of Kalispell will have a new mayor to start the new year for the first time in 12 years, as current Mayor Mark Johnson is not seeking reelection.
Three candidates are vying for the spot in the Tuesday, Nov. 4, election.
MTN News sat down with Sid Daoud for the final of our three mayoral candidate profiles.
Watch the full story:
Daoud has lived in the Flathead Valley since 2006 and works as a senior consultant for a cybersecurity company. He has served as a Kalispell City Council member for the last six years.
“I believe that the things that I believe in, the principles that I have, really fit in with Kalispell and the direction that Kalispell wants to go, so I believe that I’m the right choice for mayor,” said Daoud.
When asked about a key issue the City of Kalispell faces, Daoud said housing.
Watch the full interview with Kalispell mayor candidate Sid Daoud:
“We don’t want to keep growing out into the countryside, we want to build in the city if we can. There’s a lot of pockets of county in here and a lot of underutilized areas, that’s where we need to build and I’m going to be very cautious moving forward about sprawling out into the countryside.”
Daoud said he’s not in favor of abrupt changes in zoning density.
“So, I don’t want to plop a bunch of multi-families right inside a residential neighborhood with single-family homes. I’d like there to be a gradual increase in density, and if they are building in a certain area, I’d rather that density is in the middle, so it doesn’t disrupt the neighbors that much,” added Daoud.
Watch the full interview with Kalispell mayor candidate Ryan Hunter:
Daoud believes downtown Kalispell does need to be revitalized, to an extent.
“I think it’s naturally coming as well, we have people that are starting to move downtown, we have people that are moving along the new apartments that are being built on the Parkline trail, those are built-in customers for these businesses down here, I think that in and of itself is going to do the best job of revitalizing downtown,” said Daoud.
Daoud thinks his priorities and values make him the best fit to become Kalispell’s next mayor.
Watch the full interview with Kalispell mayoral candidate Kisa Davison here:
“So, if you want somebody that’s going to be your mayor and the spokesman for the city that knows that his main job is to listen to the people and to execute their will, that’s going to be me.”
