Copyright Kalispell Inter Lake
Editor's note: This is the second in a series of articles this week profiling Kalispell's mayoral candidates Kisa Davison believes it is time for a new type of leadership in Kalispell. “I’m not afraid to disrupt things a bit,” she said. For the entrepreneur and mayoral candidate — Davison is vying with Councilors Sid Daoud and Ryan Hunter in the upcoming municipal election — that means cutting bureaucratic red tape that she said hinders housing development. Election Day is Nov. 4, and ballots for the mail-in election are in the process of being mailed out. While getting a preliminary plat approved is easy, the work leading up to final plat is when city departments impose standards and conditions that slow development and increase costs, she said. “It’s not just red tape that exists in one department. There’s a dysfunctional communication between public works, building and development, and parks,” she said. Davison described Kalispell’s subdivision approval process as backwards. She suggested following Bozeman’s lead, where construction standards are identified during the preliminary plat stage. Founder and owner of Iron Star Construction, a residential construction company, Davison has experienced Kalispell's approval process firsthand. “The process [in Kalispell] creates so many opportunities for inefficiencies that we are not only delaying the construction of new housing in our community, but our city is causing new housing to be unaffordable, because of this process,” she said. BORN IN Dodge City, Kansas, Davison bounced between cities and states after her parents divorced in her early years. The family also struggled financially. “Those were some hard, hard years,” she said. Before she ever considered being a business owner, Davison became heavily involved in nonprofit work. While attending the University of Kansas — she graduated with a degree in French — she got a taste of leadership through a student coalition focused on developing literacy programs across the state. When she joined, there were about 30 tutors. By the time she graduated that number had grown to 200. “I saw the power of how people who care can actually affect change in their immediate and local community,” she said. After graduating, Davison moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, working as the AmeriCorps director for an organization that helped students in historically Black colleges implement literacy programs in their communities. “I worked my ass off,” she said. “I was terrified of failing.” In that role, she learned to ask questions — a mindset she plans to bring to City Council. “I’m not afraid to ask for help, I’m not afraid to say when I don’t know how to do something,” she said. Davison has never held a Council seat before, but she is prepared to dive into understanding the innerworkings of city government with the help of Mayor Mark Johnson, who endorsed her candidacy and committed to assisting in her transition to mayor, she said. The Republican establishment, including Congressman Ryan Zinke, has endorsed Davison’s candidacy as well. ADDRESSING THE city’s housing needs is a priority for Davison, who said she has a personal stake in the region’s housing crunch. Davison’s daughter and her daughter’s husband recently had a baby and moved into a $400,000 home downtown. The couple pays $300 a month in property taxes. “I hate to think that they have to live with two incomes,” she said. “I would love for them to be able to live on one income because naturally, I want my grandbaby to have her mama.” Davison intends to focus on redevelopment within city limits by using tax increment funds to update blighted infrastructure, making the area more attractive for private investors to build there. She also plans to lobby for state and federal funding to fix failing and dangerous roads in the city. “We have to get help for making our roads safer and making traffic not a life safety issue. And we can’t do that on our own, financially speaking,” she said. Advocating for outside funding is key to Davison, because increasing Kalispell’s $180 million budget would be the worst thing the city can do, she said. “We don’t have extra fat on this pig, we are lean,” she said. While she dedicates most of her time to her construction business, Davison and her husband have built several businesses from the ground up, including the Straight Blast Gym, a martial arts training center in downtown Kalispell. She plans to bring the fiscal responsibility necessary to run a company to manage Kalispell’s spending. One project Davison supported that would have used federal dollars was Main Street’s redesign, which aimed to reduce car crashes on the thoroughfare by slimming it to two travel lanes. Davison expressed support for the plan on behalf of the Business Improvement District before Council over the summer decided to reject pursuing a federal grant to fund the project. But she said that the plan only would have worked if funding to complete the Kalispell Bypass was secured. Before any major traffic changes can be discussed for Main Street, Davison said the Bypass needs to be completed, and an alternate route east of Main Street should be staked out. Davison said she wants to redesign the Main Street plan with more public input. “We need to as a community come together and update or throw away all the old plans and come up with something new,” she said. Davison said the public outcry over redesigning Main Street — a plan that had been in the works for years — was the result of a breakdown in communication between the city and community. “I don’t know why that was suddenly a surprise to the community, except that it clearly was not communicated by Council members to their constituents,” she said. Davison hopes to improve communication as mayor by making herself accessible and advertising open board positions in the city. “Anyone can text me anytime,” she said. DAVISON'S INTRODUCTION to local government operations came via her involvement with the Business Improvement District for nearly nine years. She spent the past five years serving as its chair. She also served as a member of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce’s board. Those boards were part of a coalition of downtown groups that raised money to hire a private security firm in 2023 to steer homeless people out of downtown. Davison said she contributed to hiring the firm after she saw someone doing drugs outside of her old office. She called dispatch, but the police were strained at the time and it took a while for them to respond. “At that time what I was seeing on a day-to-day basis made me fearful for my safety,” she said. To help those she saw on the street, she said she would lobby to get mental health services back in the county. “Those are the folks who I think we confuse with being homeless, that’s not their primary challenge,” she said. For Davison, public safety is a priority as the city continues to grow, which she understands is upsetting to many residents. “I want people to experience on a day-to-day basis that Kalispell is the home that they want to live in,” she said. Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected]. Kisa Davison Age: 51 Family: Husband Travis, four grown children and three grandchildren Occupation: Owner of Iron Star Construction Community service: Former Kalispell Chamber of Commerce board member, Kalispell Business Improvement District chair, heavily involved in Fresh Life Church, owner of Gorilla Booster Club nonprofit
