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Department of Corrections, Flathead County ink agreement for Kalispell-area prerelease center • Daily Montanan [1]
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Date: 2025-07-21
The Montana Department of Corrections and Flathead County last week signed an interlocal agreement allowing the state to move ahead with plans to renovate a Kalispell-area hotel into a 90-bed prerelease center for male offenders.
The Flathead County Commission on July 15 approved an Interlocal Agreement outlining responsibilities of the state to keep the county informed of each new offender placed at the facility, recidivism rates for the facility, and additional impact metrics including public complaints.
Two commissioners, Brad Abell and Randy Brodehl, voted in favor of the agreement, while Commissioner Pam Holmquist voted against it.
“As much as I think this is a great thing … I’m going to be a no vote,” Holmquist said during the commission discussion. “I still feel that this is the wrong location for this facility. So that’s their challenge, to prove me wrong, and live up to this interlocal and be good to the neighborhood.”
The agreement comes on the heels of a settlement between the state and county. Last October, the Department of Corrections filed a lawsuit alleging the county’s Board of Adjustment had capriciously voted to deny a conditional-use permit required for the state to move forward with the proposed facility.
Corrections officials had initially presented the proposal to the Flathead County Commission in September, and Abel and Brodehl, along with the county jail commander, expressed support for the facility.
Holmquist, who represents the Evergreen community where the prerelease center will be located, opposed that decision as well, citing negative feedback from nearby residents.
When the final decision went to the Board of Adjustment, however, board members cited road-access issues, an impact to local law enforcement and a negative impact to the neighborhood’s safety in their denial.
But in the department’s complaint, DOC lawyers argued the board had made changes to the county’s findings of fact without providing evidence to back them up — for example concluding road access to the former hotel property was “inadequate to accommodate two-way traffic flow” despite county staff’s research finding otherwise.
The settlement, agreed to by the Board of Adjustment in April, included the property utilizing a different access point to address traffic concerns, as well as the numerous partnership requirements formalized in the interlocal agreement.
Prerelease needs in northwest Montana
The Montana Department of Corrections contracts with nonprofits and one county to operate seven prerelease centers in Montana, where offenders transition from secure facilities back into the community under supervision.
There is no facility currently serving the northwest portion of the state comprising three of the state’s top 10 most populous counties — Flathead, Lake and Lincoln.
According to July data from the Department of Corrections, 115 of individuals in prerelease facilities were sentenced in the Flathead region — 11.8% of the prerelease population — which the department has cited as a reason for adding a new facility in the area.
The highest percentage of each prerelease center’s population is made up of residents from the respective region.
During a meeting of the interim Law and Justice Committee last week, DOC director Jim Strauss told state lawmakers that the department had recently hired an administrator for the new Flathead facility, and was starting to look at what roles needed to be filled.
Strauss acknowledged that there might be recruiting challenges for the department, due to the high cost of living in the Flathead Valley.
“We think that’s going to be the limiting step, obviously, in terms of getting going,” Strauss said.
In response to questions from lawmakers about the process of approving individuals to enter the prerelease program, Strauss said the agreement signed with the county was “not as formalized as what the other prereleases have established,” but that it does allow for commission feedback on each individual’s placement and make a case for whether or not they’re an appropriate fit for the Flathead area.
“We’ll take that advisement under serious consideration before we put someone in the community that could be harmful to the community,” he said.
With the agreement in place, DOC is working on necessary renovations to the former hotel facility to transition it to operational status by this fall.
“Our goal is to have someone living in that facility on Oct. 1,” Strauss told lawmakers last week. “It might just be one person. We might have, like, a one-to-one type supervision relationship with an individual. We’re obviously hopeful that’s not the case, but we’re going to be mindful of the restrictions that staffing will place on our ability to get up and going, and we won’t do anything that’s unsecure or unsafe.”
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