Dear Editor,
Big Sky’s growth has brought tremendous opportunity, but our infrastructure has not always kept pace. As an unincorporated community spanning two counties, we face challenges that are different from most Montana communities, and we don’t have a city government with the traditional tools to address them.
Those challenges are becoming increasingly urgent. Our community faces aging water and wastewater infrastructure, increasing pressure on our transportation network, an impaired Gallatin River, and perhaps most concerning, significant wildfire risk. Protecting Big Sky from wildfire isn’t simply about responding when a fire starts. It requires long-term investments in evacuation routes, water systems, forest management, emergency access, communications and other critical infrastructure.
Today, much of that responsibility falls on our resort tax and a collection of local organizations working together. From my perspective as CEO of Big Sky Chamber of Commerce, they have accomplished a great deal, but the scale of Big Sky’s infrastructure needs is growing faster than the resources available.
One potential solution is giving communities like Big Sky greater access to tools such as Targeted Economic Development Districts and Tax Increment Financing. These tools allow communities to capture a portion of the growth in property tax revenue and reinvest it directly into infrastructure. They do not create a new tax.
Big Sky is helping drive Montana’s economy. We should also have the ability to responsibly reinvest some of that growth into protecting our community, strengthening our infrastructure and preparing for the future.
Brad Niva
Big Sky, MT
