Council OKs new funeral home

City Council Monday night unanimously approved a zoning change that opens the way for a new funeral home at 310 South Dell.

Council members unanimously voted in favor of the zoning change after listening to the public comment section of the meeting.

This changes the zoning of the property from residential to commercial. It does not ensure there will be a funeral home established at the building, but rather it will open the building up to house a business of some sort.

Edwards Funeral Home of Chinook still must seek approval from the zoning committee before it moves into the building.

The funeral home wants to establish a mortuary in the building that now houses New Beginnings Church of the Nazarene, which is looking for a new location.

New Beginnings Church will be looking for a new location, where they will build a new church, Ward 2 Council Member Brian Barrows said.

Richard Campbell lives across the street from the property and spoke about his concerns with the funeral home being opened up at the location.

“The traffic is bad there now,” Campbell said, adding that it will just get worse once the funeral home is established. He also said the funeral home will lower property value of the homes around it.

Karen Jelly of Havre, who works at Holland & Bonine, presently the only funeral home in the city, also spoke at the meeting. She raised the possibility of turning the building into a day care rather than the funeral home.

The funeral home will have a chapel and a prep room if it is established at the building, but will not have a crematorium.

Jelly added that there were five police officers who were going to speak at Monday’s City Council meeting, but they were busy with the gunman situation at US Bank and could not speak at the meeting.

After Barrows suggested tabling the vote until the residents were able to speak for themselves at the meeting, Ward 4 Council Member Andrew Brekke clarified that the actions City Council was making Monday were not in favor of allowing the funeral home to open, but to allow the building to be used for commercial purposes.

After the clarification, the vote was unanimous to allow the zoning change.

Mayor Tim Solomon reminded the audience of the 6 p.m. Wednesday public meeting to discuss the engineer’s report of Bullhook drainage. The meeting will be held in the City Hall courtroom.