Whitefish Assault Case, Glacier Court Ruling, Lakeside Debate & Kalispell Parking Changes

This week on News Now, Daily Inter Lake reporter Taylor Inman covers the biggest headlines across northwest Montana - starting with a Whitefish woman who is facing multiple charges after allegedly attacking her husband and adult children in a violent domestic incident involving a weapon, prompting a significant law enforcement response.

In a major legal decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Montana’s Streambed Protection Act does not apply to private property within Glacier National Park, raising important questions about jurisdiction and future development inside park boundaries.

In Lakeside, residents are pushing back against a proposed wastewater treatment facility, criticizing the pace of the review process and calling for more transparency around potential impacts to Flathead Lake.

And in Kalispell, city officials are considering sweeping changes to downtown parking enforcement, including higher fines, license plate reader technology and new rules aimed at improving access for businesses and visitors.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Hello and welcome to News Now. I'm your host, Taylor Inman. We're going over the week's biggest headlines for Northwest Montana. A whitefish woman accused of attacking her husband and the couple's adult children in early April is facing multiple charges in Flathead County District Court. Prosecutors brought 54-year-old Amber Lynn Zorn upon a felony assault with a weapon charge and a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct following her April 5th arrest on Lion Trail. Judge Heidi Ulbricht is presiding over her case, and a status hearing is scheduled for May 21st. Zorn's husband told Flathead County Sheriff's Office deputies who arrived at the property at about 3 45 p.m. that Zorn had scratched him, armed herself with a knife, and barricaded herself inside the home, according to court documents. He accused her of also attacking the couple's three adult children and destroying household items. One of the adult sons showed deputies a bite mark on his arm that he alleged came courtesy of Zorn. Authorities were also given a video that allegedly captured Zorn ledging at one of her sons with a knife in her hand. Court documents said that during the interviews, Zorn appeared wearing a mask and ignored demands to come out unarmed. Deputies later found Zorn sitting on the home's back porch steps. Told to say where she was and show her hands, Zorn allegedly pulled off the mask and threw it at deputies. Court documents said she exposed her genitals to the deputies and then reached for an electric chainsaw. When she failed to drop it as instructed, authorities employed a taser on her, according to court documents, which said that once handcuffed, Zorn was taken to the hospital for an evaluation, where she allegedly cursed at deputies and medical personnel attempting to headbutt and bite them. If convicted of assault with a weapon, Zorn faces up to 20 years behind bars and a$50,000 fine. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling in the case of a private home that was built on the banks of Lower McDonald Creek in Glacier National Park, ruling that the Flathead Conservation District has no jurisdiction in the matter. The Conservation District previously found the house, owned by John and Stacy Ambler of California, was built in violation of the Montana Streambed Act, and at one point ordered the Amblers to remove the house. The home is held onto the steep bank of the stream by a concrete wall and sits on a small lot of just over 2,300 square feet. The Amblers appealed the Conservation District ruling to remove the house and ultimately sued in federal court. In February of 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen DeSoto found the conservation district lacked authority to enforce state law inside of Glacier National Park, as the state had ceded most of its jurisdiction to the federal government over all land within the boundaries of the park, including private inholdings, back in 1911. The federal government in turn accepted that cessation, save for the right of the state to tax and pursue criminal cases in 1914. The Conservation District and interveners, Friends of Montana Streams and Rivers, in turn appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit. That higher court found in its April 15th ruling that, quote, the Streambed Act is not assimilated into federal law as part of the same basic scheme in effect at the time of secession. The district and the Friends Group also argued that the Streambed Act had a criminal enforcement element and should be considered as such. But the Higher Court rejected that argument as well, noting that the Act is largely regulatory and allows for permits for people and property owners working in building near Montana streams and rivers. The Amblers never did get a permit from the conservation district to build the house, known as a 310 permit, which set off the entire case to begin with. The appeals court found that the Stream Bed Act is not a criminal law and therefore was not assimilated into federal law when the act was enacted in 1975, later adding that because Montana lacks the current legislative jurisdiction, there is no basis to apply the Streambed Act to the Amblers property. The Park Service allowed the Ambler home to be built and allowed it to be hooked into Park Service Sewer and Water, which serves Apgar Village. Apgar Village is a small village of private property inside the park boundaries just south of Lake McDonald. It's a subdivision that predates the park and is largely a commercial property, with small shops and rental cabins, save for the Village Inn, which is owned by the Park Service. While Glacier has bought or acquired most of the private property inside its boundaries since 1910, there are still several privately held lots along the shores of Lake McDonald and a few up the North Fork in and around Big Prairie. The Ninth Circuit ruling could have broader implications in the future, as Pursuit owns several rental cabins along the creek just upstream of the Ambler home. Pursuit had previously applied for a permit to the conservation district to presumably rebuild or replace the aging structures, but it pulled the application as the Ambler case progressed. The federal government does have regulatory means to examine developments and its boundaries. It has its own set of septic regulations, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Concerned Lakeside residents say the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has rushed the review of the new wastewater treatment facility under construction in Lakeside. The state agency held a public hearing on April 23rd at the Lakeside Quick Response Unit regarding a draft environmental assessment for phase two of the project, which includes the construction and operation of a new wastewater treatment facility in Lakeside. At the hearing, residents expressed frustration over what they felt was an insufficient public comment period. Initially, the time frame was set at 14 days, but was extended for an additional seven days, concluding on April 30th. Many residents felt that they did not have enough time to seek out independent professional assessments of the project and its impact on Flathead Lake. Longtime Lakeside resident Chris Swannberg said, quote, public participation means not only the right to stand up and speak your mind, it also means the right to do so knowledgeably, adding that the public needed more time to confer with professional engineers to give their opinion on the project. Swanberg also expressed disappointment that the draft assessment examined the impacts of a sequence batch reactor treatment plant, but did not explore other technology options. The Lakeside County Water and Sewer District considered three options and ultimately selected the sequence batch reactor, which board members felt balanced construction and operational cost with treatment quality. But many residents said that they wanted to know how the sequence batch reactor compares to other technologies, such as the membrane bioreactor, which is recommended by the Flathead Lake Biological Station. Without this information included in the assessment, they felt like they were unable to provide informed feedback. Nancy Baker, a longtime Lakeside resident, said she wanted to support the project but feels she didn't have enough information. She was especially frustrated that the project was divided into separate phases, which made it more challenging for her to understand the overall impact. Construction of the new wastewater treatment facilities being broken into two phases. Phase one of the project, which was approved by the state agency on April 9, 2025, concerned a permit that would allow for an update and expansion of the Lakeside Wastewater Treatment Facility to accept, treat, and handle wastewater. The permit would also allow for the discharge of treated wastewater and to stay groundwater via rapid infiltration basins, which are shallow earthen basins designed to allow treated wastewater to filter into the ground. As part of the first phase of the project, a new septage receiving and treatment facility is being constructed on Summer Stage Road with expected completion in summer of 2026. The facility would not be operational until the completion of the second phase of the project, when the specialized wastewater treatment facility is finished to treat the district's normal wastewater flow, along with septics from septic tanks. Lakeside entered into an agreement with Flathead County in 2023 to operate a regional septige treatment facility. There are 24,000 permitted septic systems that require regular pumping in the county, but no facilities that treat septiage. While the public hearing was only regarding phase two of the project, many residents took the opportunity to express lingering concerns over the first phase, including the groundwater discharge permit and the location of the facility. While many commenters expressed frustration with the draft assessment and the project in general, community members also spoke in support of the project, which they say is sorely needed in the Flathead Valley. Mark James, representing the Evergreen Water and Sewer District, said the project will reduce costs in the county and reiterated that the draft's findings in the project will significantly improve the quality of discharged wastewater compared to the existing systems. Jeff Larson, a Lakeside resident, civil engineer specializing in sewer and water system design, and member of the Montana Environmental Consultants Association, said the group is in strong support of the project. To read this story in full, visit BigForkeEagle.com. City officials and local stakeholders are working on overhauling parking rules in downtown Kalispell. The municipality's parking advisory board last week recommended raising parking violation fees using license plate recognition technology and adopting a block rule downtown to free up on-street spaces for business patrons and crackdown on chronic offenders. Kalispell police officials, representatives from downtown Kalispell Forward, and the city managers shared suggestions and ideas with the advisory board in the lead-up to its April 23rd vote. The recommendations are now headed to City Council for possible adoption. The Calisbell Police Department is considering license plate recognition technology to better enforce the rules for parking downtown and around Flathead High School. The technology would replace the city's traditional method of tracking parked vehicles, a streak of chalk. Prior to his retirement over the winter, Dave Hutton, the former parking officer, used the chalk method to keep tabs on automobiles in the downtown neighborhood. A mix of sworn and non-sworn officers have been handling enforcement since his departure, according to Kalispell Police Chief Jordan Venezio. License plate reader technology uses cameras and software to read a vehicle's plates, log the location and assign a timestamp. The necessary equipment would be strapped onto two police vehicles owned by the police department and work in tandem, ticketing vehicles that have violated the two-hour time limits on parking downtown. The police department plans to rework its parking and animal control positions into a special service officer position that will handle parking and other compliant-based code enforcement issues, according to Venezio. The license plate reader system would not be connected to a criminal justice network, it would just track the plate number, not the registered owner, according to Venezio. Other cities around Montana, including Bozeman, Missoula, and Whitefish, use similar technology to enforce parking rules. The Caliswell Parking Advisory Board also recommended letting officers give out multiple tickets to a vehicle left in the same spot over the course of a day. Currently, vehicles are ticketed only once per day. Although no daily cap was set, Caliswell Police Administration Captain Ben Sutton said that offending motorists would likely receive no more than two or three tickets per day. But the$10 ticket, which may pose only as a minor inconvenience for motorers, is expected to increase. The board recommended raising the standard parking fine to$20, increasing safety violation fines from$10 to$50, and boosting boot fees from$35 to$100. The board also recommended that council consider an ordinance to curb so-called musical cars, attacked at the downtown Kalispell Forward, described as when drivers move their vehicles a few spots every couple of hours to avoid a ticket. A block ordinance would require cars to be moved to a different block to avoid a ticket. A lag of parking has become a burden to downtown business owners and customers, according to a survey conducted by downtown Kalispell Forward. The coalition, comprised of six organizations, formed over the winter to strengthen downtown's economic vitality. The organization hopes stricter enforcement will push downtown employees to stop parking on Main Street and instead head to the underutilized permit lots nearby. Nigren said that permits for city-owned lots are oversold, yet the spaces remain largely empty. The advisory board in downtown Calisbell Forward also expressed interest in eventually introducing metered parking downtown through a phone app. All on-street parking downtown is currently free but time limited. An action plan drafted by Downtown Calisbell Forward recommended converting the Valley Bank lot into free public parking with a 90-minute time limit, providing free parking permits to all employees and business owners, and allowing city-owned lots to be leased on weekends to organizations for events. Thanks for joining us. NewsNow is a podcast from the Daily Interlake. We're proud to be the largest independent newsroom in Montana and the longest continuously published newspaper in the region. Today's stories are written by Hungry Horse News Editor Chris Peterson, Big Fork Eagle reporter Elsa Erickson, Daily Interlake News editor Derek Perkins, and reporter Jack Underhill. You can read the full versions of these stories at dailyinterlake.com, and subscribe to our YouTube channel to never miss an episode of The Pod. Everybody stay safe and have a great week.