Three years ago I was told attending city council meetings, in person, on Monday evenings was no longer legal for me to do because of a civil restraining order. This was NOT a violation of my rights to make public comment, I was told by the judge, because I could still attend meetings virtually and make comments with my phone.
As long as the other half of that toxic relationship wasn’t present, though, I was still able to attend other public meetings, meetings which, by law, MUST BE HELD for entities like the City Planning Commission, which met last Wednesday, and the Police Commission, which met the day after.
For more on the actual law dictating what must be done to be in compliance open meeting laws, here’s a screenshot from Montana Code Annotated:
When Missoula’s 4th District bathroom judge allowed another civil restraining order from a state legislator to be issued for the next decade of my life–with one of the four exclusion zones of 1,500 ft removing my ability to go anywhere downtown until 2036–my ability to attend ANY public meeting, in person, effectively ended.
That’s why I tried attending the Police Commission virtually, which I quickly realized would be impossible, since the conference ID was missing a digit.
The only evidence I’ve found so far that this meeting even happened are the minutes. No video or audio recording appears to be available, which itself seems legally dubious to me.
One reason I wanted to attend this meeting was to see if any public comments were made about Lucas Bighouse’s taser skills after he got scared of that tiny woman in her little yellow car and lit her up. Would keyboard warriors, like Kevin Hunt, show up to make good on their endless Facebook commentary?
According to the minutes, no, it would appear that no one from the public showed up, so no one made a stink about Missoula’s violent cop problem. The absent public also missed the minimal cost of reloading the new toy cops have to play with, the GRAPPLER!
The Police Commission and City Planning Commission may have been spared the annoyance of dealing with me, a member of the public commenting on their public business funded with public dollars, but at what cost? Because there are lawsuits now, and I know from at least one background source that getting caught violating open meeting laws is a very sore subject for Missoula’s dominant political party.
Unlike the Police Commission, the City Planning Commission did post a video, so here’s a clip about the “data center” amendment I found relevant to the mostly rabid frothing happening elsewhere on this subject:
After my double-failure to public comment I did finally got through to what I’m sure was the dismay of the MRA boardroom when they realized how I was struggling to interpret a legal term, as applied to murder investigations, or lack thereof, that will be the focus of tomorrow’s post.
If I get point-of-ordered by Miss Better Big Sky trying to comment tomorrow, which I’m currently planning on doing, then it will just add to the multitude of tiny little transgressions here and there when it comes to the rules that double-standard town expects selective enforcement of.
If you appreciate my curated attention to local processes and attempt to inform those processes with my delightful commentary, please consider donating to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps.
While a political candidate has used 18 victims of discrimination to re-litigate how terrible Seth Bodnar is in order to score political points, UM’s identity as a liberal arts university was destroyed this spring and barely anyone noticed.
Here’s how this major change, which gutted a century-long legacy at UM, was reported by a Helena-based media outlet:
The University of Montana’s decision to terminate its literature master’s program has some faculty members concerned about the future of other liberal arts programs at Montana’s flagship public university and how academic program cuts are made.
Other cuts over the last decade have given some faculty and students the perception that university leadership is struggling to uphold UM’s liberal arts identity, several staff members told Montana Free Press. But the decision to end the literature master’s has also raised concerns about downstream consequences for other programs.
“Apart from our own sort of personal sense of loss as literature faculty, one thing that stands to be a grievous loss here is the way it’s going to degrade the interdisciplinary focus on language and literary arts on campus and in the department,” said Eric Reimer, the director of literature graduate studies, in an April interview.
Reimer said the literature program is one of the oldest on campus, with the first master’s degree awarded in 1915.
“It’s been central to the branding of the institution for over a century,” he said.
This branding appealed to me 26 years ago when I started attending classes at UM to finish my English degree, graduating in 2003 with a double-emphasis in literature and creative writing.
But that was a different world, the one that existed before social media destroyed everything.
When I saw the Truthout article on my X feed (the irony!) I recognized the campus immediately. What would this national publication say about UM killing its identity with barely a peep from locals?
In April, the University of Montana eliminated its master’s degree program in English, focused on Literature and Ecocriticism, raising serious concerns about the university’s identity. “English is such a fundamental core subject within the humanities, and it’s almost like the heart of the humanities is being cut out,” said English Department Chair Louise Economides.
The University of Montana is not the only university where the “heart of the humanities” is being cut out with little to no conversation. The attack has been relentless nationally. Eric Hayot and Matt Seybold have described this crisis as “a crisis of civil society writ large.” They write:
There is no condition in which the humanities are under attack in which the whole university is not under attack. There is no condition in which the university is under attack that the whole of educational infrastructure, public and private, from pre-K up, is not under attack. And there is no condition in which education is under attack in which civil society can remain unimperiled.
Can this country claim we still have a civil society when the latest hero for women in America is a psychotic mother who murdered her three children? I’ll return to this question later in the post.
Last night I ran into one of the professors quoted in the first article outside the Good Food Store, where we briefly chatted. When I brought up Camille Paglia the professor quickly called the author of Sexual Personae a “fucker” because Paglia is considered an “anti-Feminist”.
A similar sentiment of women criticizing women for not blindly following other women popped up in a piece bashing Seth Bodnar’s campaign amidst claims Alani Bankhead’s minor child has been politically targeted, which is worse than being murdered by your own mother, apparently.
One of the women getting flak for breaking ranks with other women is Carol Williams, wife of the late Pat Williams, and a political powerhouse in her own right. Why is Carol Williams beholden to privileged white men, the author asks? Alani Bankhead has a vagina and dark skin, so, really, the choice should be obvious, right?
To see how this manipulated gender derangement will guarantee Kurt Alme’s victory, here are some screenshots from Adria L. Jawort’s political think piece:
Further down, our editorializing journalist addresses the problem of Carol Williams’ influence, along with another woman who didn’t get the vagina memo, Moffie Funk:
“Carol’s List helps progressive, pro-choice Democratic women run for office in Montana and win — to increase women’s political power in the state,” their mission statement states.
But after you read this, you might say they should probably just edit that whole part out because they are anything but that.
In May of 2025, the Stars and Stripes military magazine published a piece describing an emerging trend of bad actors claiming to represent veterans’ groups were sowing distrust in the credibility of the Military and actual veteran group’s by committing a form of Stolen Valor.
Stars and Stripes said, “This new form of deception, what we call False Valor, is the exploitation of the military community’s reputation for unethical purposes.”
One of these False Valor groups was a dark money group called Progressive Vet. This group listed non-veteran and longtime Jon Tester sycophant, Moffie Funk, as its treasurer.
Despite its unscrupulous morals, this group was highly effective as they hid behind veterans’ names to exploit the trust of Montana voters, boosting Bankhead with $2.5 million in ads before immediately pulling support for her when she won the primary.
The group’s goal, after all, was to hide behind the namesake of veterans just to defeat the candidate Tester had openly mocked and wanted to discredit, Reilly Neill.
Moffie Funk, once a highly respected educator, had discredited and disrespected her own lifelong public service for 30 pieces of silver. Her legacy will be forever tainted as the person who committed one of the most brazen acts of False Valor in Montana political history.
While this episode of political mean girls plays out, I dropped a little cultural bomb on the professor last night when I suggested Allen Ginsberg was a sexual predator who, I believe, targeted the son of the man he’s non-sexually smooching in this picture:
When I finally start dumping my cultural analysis on Substack readers will have the opportunity to learn more about why I’m making such an audacious claim, because it’s not one I’m making lightly. The picture that has come into focus of Missoula, and this town’s role in the counter-culture, is so much more extensive and disturbing than I ever could have imagined.
The transformation of Universities from places of learning to business-focused indoctrination centers isn’t as important, it would appear, as the victim-experiences of cultural power’s new hierarchy, and with that the soul of academia disappears.
Here’s how Truthout ends its lament:
Higher ed is on the verge of collapsing because it has lost its soul. Can this soul be restored? Perhaps. But this would require a nationwide movement to restore public trust and reclaim higher education, building an academy that is not solely transactional or profit-driven but is deeply invested in serving and collaborating with its broader communities and society writ large. If we cannot do this, then we are one step closer to witnessing the weakening of our civil society and the end of our democracy.
Ok, sure, but the cultural malaise is so much worse and pervasive than what’s happening, or not happening anymore, on campuses, that I don’t begrudge towns like Missoula for not really caring about this seemingly minor issue of a University allowing its identity to die without a bigger fight.
Before discussing anti-Feminists and poet predators, I told the professor she was a potential accomplice in my criminally effective rhyming abilities, which warranted a legal discussion with Judge Vannatta a few months ago. Sadly, my fourth pint of ice cream this week was softening in my hand, so I bid the professor adios and returned to my little living box to compose this:
same, Lindsey why go on? this one's broken this one's wrong
fame, Lindsey I won't judge things can whisper things can nudge
tame, Lindsey nothing is three, two, one goodbye kids!
babes, Lindsey ice cube crash your army grows you own the math
craze, Lindsey no they're not! TikTok brave, their sick-fuck talk!
lame, Lindsey the man who calls he made you do it! he is the cause!
blame, Lindsey you have none so do thy will your gender won
frame, Lindsey not your home-- the camera frame, the devil's phone
Don’t worry, dear reader, I’m a University-trained rhyming professional, and if this doesn’t align with my conditional First Amendment, I’m sure the uniformed oinkers enforcing the court’s strict standards will let me know.
I finally watched the recording of last Thursday’s County Commissioner meeting and I have some clips to share about how sewer districts are created in Missoula County and the incredible power of the word SHALL, which Commissioner Slotnick described as a sort of legal trigger word that compels their rubber stamp to stamp any request that meets the official requirements.
In the first clip you will hear Commissioner Slotnick seemingly anticipate the public criticism about to be expressed by preemptively explaining what SHALL does to them, as Commissioners. Then the public comment is made, further triggering Commissioner Slotnick into a rare back-and-forth.
Josh Slotnick’s tone throughout this clip is defensive and highly emotional, which might not make sense at first, but when the acronyms of gentrification are uttered, it started making more sense to me.
While the sewer district for the Blackfoot Crossing is in a Targeted Economic Development District (TEDD), Slotnick’s clear frustration seemed focused on the fact that no request for Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has been made (yet), so it’s too early for the pesky public to be asking those types of pesky questions.
To help back him up, Slotnick called on the County Planner managing TEDDs, Andrew Hagemeier, to speak, but all Andrew did was admit that “we don’t have a lot of details about what his plans are for sewer and water“. If that’s true, isn’t a public meeting the opportunity for members of the public to, you know, ASK QUESTIONS?
Before the developer finally showed up virtually to make his pitch, another chronic commenter pointed out the deflection strategy of using semantics to strawman/gaslight the previous commenter, and the Commissioners listened because that’s THEIR FUCKING JOB.
Semantics are important, and not just because they are used sometimes by elected officials to appear powerless, like mind-controlled slaves beholden to conjuring gentrifiers. Sometimes semantics give you clues to who a person is, so listen to the following clip of the comment from the developer, Gregory Morse, and see if you can hear the two-word phrase that shaped my search for more context on him.
When you listen to the clip the first thing you will notice is how our triggered County Commissioner suddenly thaws when he realizes who he is talking to online, quickly reversing his declaration that the speaker only get 3 minutes. This is the DEVELOPER, Missoula public, and he’s gonna need a little more time to tell you about…
RADICAL CREATIVITY!!!
Oh no, I thought to myself, could this be morse code from a TECH BRO?!?
Truth be told, I wasn’t specifically thinking tech when I heard this man say RADICAL CREATIVITY, more venture-capitalist investor speak, but when I found more context online, the name SIEBEL definitely stood out.
If that’s not bad enough, Morse’s co-founding of “Just Ahead” helps put Montana MORE on the map than we already are for dudes who boast this kind of shit on his website:
When I saw this it clicked. Yeah, this sewer district is definitely going to come in handy for transforming Bonner to better serve the interests of the kind of assholes who say RADICAL CREATIVITY after suggesting they wake up every morning thinking about affordable housing.
Will this interest include a future data center someday soon?
Another curious and quiet move related to data centers happened last night at the City Land Commission, but so far there is no video available of this meeting, which is unusual. I’m also unclear as to whether or not the chance to make public comment was even offered, since I had trouble logging in to hear the meeting happen live.
The amended change to the Unified Development Code (UDC) that specifically addresses data centers was an admitted “band-aid”, but even with the explanation I listened to, the change still doesn’t make sense to me.
Can anyone translate this city-speak for me?
The part about “occupying less area” apparently went from 50% down to 10%, and there was some limited discussion about “unintended consequences”, but I’m unsure as to what all this actually means for the application the city received, which is what triggered this “band-aid” amendment.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a video clip for more clarity? Is this how east-coast transplants run local meetings, Danny Tenenbaum?
In all of my “data center” reporting I’ve focused on two main things, and that’s local processes and the larger game of narrative control.
To conclude this post I’m going to have to be as careful as possible because what the City Planning Commission heard last night from Eran Pehan’s office as the excuse for such a quickly needed “band-aid” amendment was the excuse that bills are brewing at the state level, which is definitely true, but it’s also true that Judge Vannatta’s interpretation of the First Amendment means I can’t directly write about the out-going Missoula legislator who just published an op-ed about those anti-data center bills ready to go for the next legislative session, and that’s too bad.
With that I think I’m done here. Donate if you can.
I started hearing about problems with Russian immigrants years ago when I worked at the homeless shelter. The Poverello’s food pantry program, which saved food from local grocery store dumpsters, dispersed food to low-income clients, and some of that food would later be re-sold by “the Russians” out on Mullan road, just a few miles from their Slavic Pentecostal church.
Two surnames related to this immigrant community, Tsuber and Chinikailo, became quite familiar to me, and today I’m going to provide a little context about this immigrant community, since a member of this community has been recently charged with soliciting sex from a minor.
On August 12, 2026, around 1:41 pm, an online application user, later identified as 24-year-old Matthew Tsuber, requested to connect with another online application profile that was being used by a detective. The latter profile depicts a fictitious young female who quickly messaged Tsuber that she was 12 years of age or younger. Upon learning of the believed child’s age, Tsuber responded: “Yeah I’m not sure about that” in relation to the age. The detective replied, “Oh k whatev [peace sign emoji]”. Tsuber then responded: “You want to hook up?” Tsuber then asked for a photo of the believed child.
The above messages were all exchanged in less than one minute. The conversation continued, with the detective stating, “I mean I’m cool if ur cool lol”. Tsuber replied, “Ya just don’t say that I raped you [laughing emoji]”. Tsuber again asked for a photo, to which the detective replied that Tsuber could send one first. Tsuber then sent a photograph clearly depicting the face of a person law enforcement has identified as Matthew Tsuber.
In today’s post we’re going to learn some fascinating history about Russian immigrants in this part of the country, including a modern interpretation of their culture, as expressed to me by former Detective, Guy Baker, after I called 911 on a creepy looking dude standing by a young girl selling roses on Higgins in 2022.
Here’s what I wrote four years ago about my little chat with Detective Baker regarding the flower girl and local law enforcement’s pathetic response after I called 911 (when Baker finally called me back, the caller ID said FBI):
The follow up call came a few days later, and I guess it was intended to put my concerns to rest. I was told by Detective Baker that a vigorous 6-8 hour investigation revealed the man was indeed a Russian out-of-stater traveling with his “family” from western Washington. There were two boys and a woman who appeared to be the “mother”. This family’s behavior had caused another bystander to call 911 two days after I did, and this concerned citizen took pictures, something Guy Baker suggested I could have done to make his job easier.
At the end of the day those red flags that had caused our concern were chalked up to “cultural differences”, so I guess it must be a Russian thing to avoid answering direct questions about familial ties and to express fear about the goal of your fundraising efforts. Thankfully history shows us the Russian character is strong and perseveres beyond adversity.
The same year girls selling roses got my attention, this floral marketing strategy also got the attention of authorities in Eastern Idaho, but nothing came from the “research” done by the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office into this phenomenon:
The Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office is aware of the flower sellers and has looked into the situation.
“We’ve seen them selling (roses), but we haven’t seen any evidence that they’re doing anything illegal or dangerous,” says Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Bryan Lovell. “We’ve done some research and rumors have been spread wildly over social media in a lot of different ways, but it’s unfounded.”
When you turn the time-dial back to 1943, before the Cold War kicked off, the movement of Russian immigrants into America was a specific concern for Major Jordan, who wrote the following in his diary about the flow of Russian immigrants from the pipeline previously servicing the war efforts (excerpt from Cold War Montana, by Ken Robison):
The quote from the Great Falls Tribune that follows describes the commander of the “Soviet side”, Col. A.M. Kotikov, as being well-known “in aviation circles”, then further describes the broader community of Russians as being: “…generally well-liked, though the officers acquired a reputation for not paying their bar tabs.“
Interesting.
The real gem I found this morning while doing research is a 1995 graduate student thesis by University of Montana student, Emily Barton, and the reason I found it is because I was searching the surname “Chinikailo”.
Here’s a screenshot of the title page, along with the first appearance of the name that would help set the tone for future assimilation, or lack thereof, of Missoula’s Russian refugee community:
The more I read, the more I thanked Emily Barton in my head for doing her graduate work on this subject, which included the resistance of this refugee community to use a local program offering jobs.
Wow.
This “black market” mentality has persisted, I would argue, with the admittedly large families that have settled in the Missoula valley. Side hustles include trafficking guns and rampant car-theft, as I learned in an anecdotal story one day at my garage sale.
After telling the stranger about why I think you’ll always hear fat Russians speaking Russian when you go for a soak at Symes Hot Springs, the stranger (a retired reporter, I found out) told me a quick story about Karl Tyler, the automotive dealer, and his problems with a few cars every year getting stolen off one of his car lots.
When approached by religious leaders to buy the land that became the Slavic Pentecostal church on Mullan, Karl Tyler had an interesting clause he added to the contract, paraphrased like this: if one more car gets stolen from me, Karl Tyler supposedly said, the land will revert to my ownership.
According to this stranger, Karl never again had a problem with cars being stolen off his lots.
Going back to the grad-student’s research, here’s more about the lack of success Mr. Chinikailo had getting Russian refugees to get jobs:
With big families of any nationality, a wide array of characters are represented, so I’m not trying to indict everyone with a surname as being complicit in black market activity simply because cultural and structural factors may make that likelihood a greater probability.
I mean, at least one “Tsuber” learned about the law and how to politely thank the important people on their special day!
A Seeley Lake woman who purchased a firearm for a prohibited person was found guilty by a federal jury yesterday, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said.
Following a one-day trial, Alyssa Mikkel Tsuber, 32, was found guilty of one count of false statement during a firearm transaction. Tsuber faces a potential term of imprisonment of 10 years, a $250,000 fine, and 3 years of supervised release.
Before committing this crime, Alyssa was commenting on Facebook about a different crime and her apparent knowledge about what happened.
At least this community has a place where they can ask God for forgiveness . That’s good, right?
In summary, I think Guy Baker may have been right in 2022, and my confusion really did stem from my cultural misunderstanding. I think I understand things better now.
If you would like to help me continue mapping out the Missoula community I’ve called home for 26 years as a refugee myself from midwest suburbia, then you can donate to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps.
I wasn’t planning on commenting last night at Monday’s City Council meeting approving the budget, but after Kristen Jordan’s “survival camping” bullshit, someone had bring REALITY into the conversation.
What was Kristen Jordan actually trying to accomplish last night?
From what I could tell, Jordan wanted money to study a healthier way of managing weeds in Missoula parks, and to get the estimated $150,000 dollars to accomplish this study, she proposed raiding the Urban Camping cleanup fund.
Here’s the language of her amendment, followed by a clip where the language of toxic empathy is deployed.
Jordan’s colleagues, sensing a DSA tantrum brewing, put on their kid gloves and did their gosh-darn best to see if reason could be used, like asking if Jordan had looked for any grants before trying to take money away homeless cleanup efforts. No, Jordan said, she had not.
What REALLY inspired me to comment, though, was Jordan’s final tantrum where she references “values” in a failed attempt to shame everyone else into feeling bad about ACTUALLY LISTENING to constituents when they compelled our elected leaders to get more assertive with “survival camping”.
Instead of acknowledging her colleagues were responding to the will of their constituents, who have become overwhelmed by the many dangerous aspects of enabling drug addicts at homeless encampments, Jordan frames cleaning up riverbanks and other areas used by “survival campers” as “making sure we don’t see homeless people”.
While these clips are frustrating, Jordan’s day-job with the Montana Conservation Commission makes her perspective on “survival camping” downright confounding, since this commission is worried about water quality, and urban campers aren’t known for being good stewards of the land.
What am I missing here?
The Western Montana Conservation Commission (WMCC) is a uniquely structured non-regulatory organization that works to accomplish its important mandate in a consensus-building manner, stressing education, cooperation, broad-based community involvement, partnerships with agencies and nonprofit groups, and the voluntary participation of western Montana residents. The commission represents a wide cross-section of citizens and local, state, tribal, and federal agency representatives who strive to identify Western Montana’s water quality and aquatic invasive species problems and work collectively to implement the most effective solutions.
The Western Montana Conservation Commission is administratively attached to the State of Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) and serves as a convening body to facilitate close cooperation and coordination between federal, state, provincial, tribal, and local resource managers to protect the condition of aquatic and natural resources across Western Montana.
Fun Fact: while not officially recognized in the DSM-5, Trump Derangement Syndrome can be detrimental to cognitive health, but even with those barriers in mind, California was able to determine that pooping by the water ain’t good for it.
From the link:
President Donald Trump, a self-described germophobe, has made no secret of his disgust with California’s growing homeless problem, which he has called a “disgrace” and “inappropriate” and equated to “living in hell.”
“We should all work together to clean up these hazardous waste and homeless sites before the whole city rots away,” Trump tweeted about San Francisco on Oct. 26. “Very bad and dangerous conditions, also severely impacting the Pacific Ocean and water supply.”
San Francisco officials were quick to dispute Trump’s claims. But some of California’s most prized rivers, beaches and streams are indeed contaminated with levels of fecal bacteria that exceed state limits, threatening kayakers, swimmers — and the state’s reputation as a bastion of environmental protection.
…
Fecal contamination of waterways is a widespread problem and becoming more urgent in states with large homeless populations. In Seattle, homeless people living in RVs are accused of dumping raw sewage straight into storm drains, which flows directly to local waterways. In Oregon, workers cleaning up homeless camps along the Willamette River in Eugene routinely find feces and needles.
If the state of California can admit pooping by rivers and streams is bad, why can’t Kristen Jordan? Is being a leftist THAT cognitively destructive?
Maybe we should just be done with municipal laws and the people who enforce them if enforcement means “criminalizing” the small percentage of people in this valley of 80,000 souls who leave bullet casings next to their used needles.
While we’re at it, let’s stop enforcing Federal statutes related to immigration, then, if we REALLY want to annihilate the social contract and open pandora’s box for true anarchy, let’s reconsider laws against murder, especially for postpartum women who kill their own children, because that’s apparently where we’re at as a society (the kid-killer mom has raised over $700,000 dollars, by the way).
On the immigration front, doing something performative with her municipal power appealed to Kristen Jordan a few months ago when the anti-ICE “movement” was hot, as reported by the Montana “Free” Press:
The resolution Jordan drafted affirms the council’s support of the Missoula Police Department’s policy to “the extent permitted by law, avoid committing city resources to federal immigration actions for which it has no authority,” and states the city and police department will not enter into a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as a 287(g) agreement.
Jordan said the biggest concern among other council members was that approving the resolution would endanger Missoula’s immigrant and refugee communities, though she said she found academic research showing benefits from such action.
“Most peer-reviewed research shows it makes communities safer when municipalities assert their stance on things,” Jordan said. “The average citizen knows what to expect from police, how they can participate or not and understand how police will handle crowds.”
This quote is particularly funny to me, since “peer-reviewed research” is mentioned in relation to municipalities making hollow declarations that “assert their stance on things”. What the fuck does that even mean?
Before I get to the type of data analysis Kristen Jordan is referring to in regards to refugees and immigrants, I’d like to remind readers that I’ve been interested in obtaining LOCAL OVERDOSE DEATH DATA for many years now, which I referenced recently on X:
Instead of doing what the conservative Discovery Institute is doing for their partisan agenda of using reality against reality-averse liberals, Kristen Jordan probably read something like this and got all tingly:
Do sanctuary policies hamper deportations of noncitizens who threaten public safety? Do sanctuary policies increase crime? These empirical questions are at the heart of a public debate. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) claims that “in jurisdictions where we are not allowed to assume custody of aliens from jails, …sanctuary cities release these criminals back to the street, [increasing] the occurrence of preventable crimes” (1). The government has often formally relied on this empirical assertion, arguing that sanctuary policies “make all of us less safe because they intentionally undermine our laws and protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes” (2). Immigrants’ rights advocates, by contrast, maintain that sanctuary policies build trust between immigrant communities and the police (3, 4).
…
This report’s second finding—that sanctuary policies do not increase crime—builds on previous estimates of the effects of immigrant-friendly policies on crime rates. Martinez et al. (ref. 16, p. 9) conclude in a review that “relatively little empirical research examines the impact that local limited cooperation policies have on crime.” Wong (17) shows, in cross-section, that crime rates are lower in sanctuary jurisdictions. Amuedo-Dorantes and Arenas-Arroyo (18) find that sanctuary policies make petitions for legal status under the Violence Against Women Act more likely. O’Brien et al. (10) use a matching strategy to compare crime rates in cities with and without sanctuary policies and find little difference between them. Gingeleskie (19) defines sanctuary policies broadly and finds that such policies instituted between 1995 and 2014 in 32 cities caused about a 7% decline in property crime and had no effect on violent crime. Martinez-Schuldt and Martinez (20) find that the adoption of immigrant-friendly policies across cities between 1990 and 2010 reduced robberies (but not murders).
What’s the problem here? I’ll tell you, because I consider this my local turf, and this is the problem: if investigators and prosecutors are unreliable because politics trumps public safety, then the data being referenced can’t be trusted.
Since I was admittedly triggered when I finally got through to make my public comment, I didn’t reference the “hot shot” overdose deaths of urban campers I suspect are murders in Missoula, or the many “accidental drownings” of mostly women that I suspect are ALSO murders, or the corpse of the possible urban camper found on the Kim Williams trail last November and never officially identified by the Sheriff’s Office, but comment I did because very few members of the public were present last night as the budget bullshit got batted around before the majority pulled out their rubber stamps to pass the budget.
Emotions really can cloud rational thought, like my inaccurate assessment on the phone a few months ago with someone at the Health Department about the Buckhouse bridge encampment cleanup, privately funded by “Shoptown LLC“.
What I was wrong about was the natural reduction of water in the area, which was keeping the last trash landfill water-logged, so that this…
…could be transformed into this:
Of course, like the rest of Missoula, it only looks good if you make sure to NOT look too closely.
What’s the harm of a few batteries, some plastic, and what looks like Fentanyl-scorched tinfoil when the offenders who left behind this material are vulnerable victims of circumstance helplessly stealing bikes while abusing dangerous drugs and getting arrested, then released, to do it all again somewhere else in our “beautiful” community?
With this particular urban camp cleanup being forced onto the bottomline of a private developer, the public doesn’t get to see the price tag of what Jason Rice, representing IMEG, paid Missoula Works (who represent the Christian homeless grift), but we do get to see things like the 2024 990 form of the Missoula Economic Partnership, which lists Jason Rice as one of the players–a connection I thought I had hallucinated after going through so much of Missoula’s incestuous developer community over the weekend for yesterday’s post on the forces shaping Missoula’s future.
If you appreciate the work I’ve done over the years bringing the nitty-gritty reality of “survival” camping to your screen, then please consider donating to my new GoFundMe page because I operate on a shoestring and a prayer.
