Month: March 2017

by William Skink

I received an odd piece of mail yesterday, at work. Fan mail it is not. It was typed and arrived with no return address. I also suspect the name is fake, which is funny considering the content. Here it is with names omitted/altered:

Hey (my last name) the scumbag–

Lets see you kick around people by name in the city, county and at UM–and you hide behind a surname–what a fucking coward—the gloves come off now for you–you chickenshit.

We intend to write to the (my employer) and send them all your previous posts for their review

John Doe

I think the name is fake because the police officer I talked to couldn’t find it in their database.

Yes, I talked to an officer. This attempt to negatively impact my employment is not just a threat to me, but to my family, and I don’t take that kind of thing lightly.

I don’t have any clue who sent this, or what specific post or general topic inspired this little outburst. But I am taking precautions, and documenting this with law enforcement is just the first step.

music by William Skink

While I have never performed a musical set on stage, I have certainly rocked out in my garage and it can be a workout. Will Montana’s special election hinge on how healthy one must be to play music shows?

I agree with James Conner, the latest drip from Quist’s financial woes is going to leave a mark:

After today’s report on Rob Quist’s finances, I wouldn’t bet a cold road apple that he’ll win Montana’s special election for Congress. Billing Gazette writer Tom Lutey reports that Quist played 35 gigs in 2011, but told his bank he was in such poor health he could not work and thus could not make payments on his mortgage.

Facts more favorable to Quist may be missing from Lutey’s report, but the drip, drip, drip, of bad news on this subject is becoming a firehose blast of adverse news that’s drowning out his advocacy for a single-payer health care system.

Quist was hobbled out of the gate when tentacles of the Democrat political machine–the DCCC–withheld financial support amidst GG’s tv blitz. Did they know what the opposition research was turning up?

Quist could have weathered the personal issue of medical debt. Initially I thought it could actually made Quist more relatable. But then details dribbled out, like screwing a contractor and getting sued by former band mates.

Now, with Quist’s alleged lie to the bank about his inability to pay his mortgage, things aren’t looking good. The hope that national funds will start pouring in seems to have evaporated. How will the party faithful respond?

If Quist loses, the Democratic leadership should be purged. But they won’t be because they still don’t think the problem is with them. But it is, and a recent Counterpunch piece highlighted how the Democratic Party continues shunning Sanders surrogates:

While Democratic Party leaders preach unity, and continue touting DNC Chair Tom Perez with Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN), despite the great lengths the establishment took to ensure Sanders-backed Ellison didn’t win the DNC Chair race, the Democratic Party establishment continues to carry an abrasive attitude toward Bernie Sanders and progressives. Though resistance to Trump is a unifying force, any push for reform and changes within the Democratic Party have been obstructed at every turn since Hillary Clinton’s election loss. The Democratic Party has learned nothing, and while Nina Turner and Tulsi Gabbard remain favorites among Bernie Sanders supporters and likely have bright futures as progressive leaders, the Democratic Party leadership sees them as political opponents, and will continue to attack them when convenient, and insist on their support and loyalty when it suits them, as they have done with Bernie Sanders and his supporters since the Democratic Primaries.

Progressives are the abused spouse who refuses to leave the abuser. How much blatant disdain are progressives willing to take before they realize it’s time for a divorce?

by William Skink

The housing crunch in Missoula impacts everything from emergency response services to refugee relocation and everything in between. The housing needs are as varied as the demographics involved. Missoula needs more workforce housing, low-income housing, starter homes for first-time homebuyers and some type of housing for the hardest-to-house chronically homeless population.

One of the common approaches to this complicated issue is to endlessly study the problem of housing accessibility. It seems like over the years I’ve written at least a half-dozen posts about affordable housing that includes a reference to the latest study. This post will be no different, thanks to James Grunke playing Captain Obvious with a piece in the Missoulian describing how housing barriers hurt the economy:

In our housing survey with the Organization of Realtors, a primary goal is to find answers to some of our community’s most pressing questions: What are the barriers to residential development in Missoula? And what do homebuyers want?

The study will include interviews with focus groups (to assess consumer demand and preferences) and developers (to learn why they’re not developing the land that’s available in and around Missoula).

The Missoula Economic Partnership views housing as an economic development concern because of its impact on employers’ ability to attract the workers needed to move their businesses – and our economy – forward.

To that end, we support efforts to create and incentivize a housing market where consumers have choices at every price point. Because, yes, attainable housing is an economic development issue.

Thanks Captain Obvious, I’m sure this latest study will suddenly illuminate the problem in ways previous studies have not.

Studies aren’t the only way Missoula tries to fix its housing problem. Sometimes after a problem is studied, a plan is formed. That happened 5 years ago with the issue of homelessness in Missoula. Our community responded by formulating a 10 year plan to end homelessness, and now that we are half-way through, how are things going with these efforts?

Thanks to some great reporting by the Kaimin, we have a surprising admission by the person who took over coordination of the 10 year plan last fall:

In 2012, Mayor John Engen introduced Reaching Home, a 10-year plan to end homelessness in Missoula. The plan outlined key issues affecting the homeless and those on the brink of homelessness, along with presenting suggestions for solutions.

Now five years into the 10-year endeavor, Reaching Home coordinator Theresa Williams said the plan has shown no measurable effect on the homeless population.

While the plan did not explicitly call for a so-called wet shelter, it did put forth the Housing First method. The method, first promoted during the early 1990s in New York, promotes the idea that housing should be provided, no matter one’s conditions or addictions, as the most basic first step to recovering from a crisis.

A 2009 study by the University of Washington found that moving chronic alcoholics into permanent, supportive housing led to a 33 percent drop in alcohol use.

Williams could not confirm that the city had an actual strategy to make use of the Housing First model outlined in its own 10-year plan.

Read the whole article, it’s vastly better than anything the Missoulian has ever written about homelessness in Missoula, and I’m not just saying that because the reporter included my perspective in his piece.

One of Missoula’s biggest problem when it comes to housing is the vacancy rate that’s been hovering between 4-5%. Because of the lack of available housing, different demographics end up competing with each other. In the article linked above, Grunke explains that retirees are competing with young families over smaller starter homes. That is one form of competition. Another is between refugees who have barriers that are similar to our low-income population.

Last September, those barriers were on display in an article that lamented what refugees were facing with Missoula’s rental market:

Congolese refugees and the people trying to help them get settled in Missoula are facing a housing crisis.

Five families from refugee camps in East Africa will be in town by the end of September, none of them with a source of steady income or credit history.

It’s the job of the local resettlement agency, the International Rescue Committee, to help them secure both as quickly as possible, said IRC director Molly Short Carr.

But record home sales prices in Missoula have placed rentals at a premium. And in a town that swells this time of year with university students – many with no credit ratings themselves – property managers and landlords can afford to be picky about who they rent to.

“We’re kind of hitting a bit of a brick wall,” Carr admitted.

I was enraged when I first read this article. It’s like everyone involved in relocating refugees to Missoula had absolutely no clue about the housing crunch in Missoula. It’s been over half a year since that article, so I wonder how things are going for refugees in Missoula. Are ALL the families who have been brought here STILL here?

There have been some claims in the comment sections of a few article I’ve seen claiming that some of the families have used up their financial allotment and moved on. In this Missoula Current article, for example, Ed Kugler wrote the following comment:

What isn’t mentioned in the article is the number of families who have left Missoula to places unknown because they cannot find housing or jobs and they have trouble adjusting to the cold weather. The IRC refused my attempts to find out exactly how many have left town. What a disservice to these people to bring them half way around the world to a place with no affordable housing and no jobs. What a scam!

If some families have moved on because they can’t find affordable housing, the IRC should be more forthcoming with acknowledging this is happening. Another comment I read claimed some families were being put up in motels. If true, that puts refugees in direct competition with other demographics that utilize the motel system.

Why would the IRC want to hide this? Maybe because it would validate what critics like me were saying from the beginning–that the housing dynamics and wage reality in Missoula makes our community a particularly bad one to be relocating over a hundred refugees a year to.

If refugee families aren’t being able to sustain their presence in Missoula, the first thing to do is admit it’s happening. Then advocates can do what everyone else in Missoula does: fund a study of the problem, formulate a plan, then hope the private sector will put aside greedy collusion, and when they don’t, fund another study and write another plan.

For that is the Missoula way.

by William Skink

The political spectacle continues. With leaks and accusations of foreign meddling, it’s hard to keep up. Which leaks are bad? The one that provides evidence of a rogue CIA? Yeah, that one is bad, but not the one that proves surveillance of Trump officials, right? Very confusing.

I don’t get confused, I get inspired. Here’s a new video that probably won’t be up long. Tap my wire:

by William Skink

What is the state of our community? Not without challenges, reads the headline of this piece from Missoula Current. Here is how Mayor Engen prioritizes the challenges Missoula is facing:

“Are we being intentional in the way we engage in taking care of our community?” Engen said. “Are we planning appropriately for the future? As we move forward, we have to be intentional about all sorts of things.”

Engen painted a picture of the city’s pressing initiatives through the lens of intentional steps. In the past, they have included overcoming issues surrounding sexual assault, purchasing open space to protect the city’s view sheds, and taking steps to own Missoula’s drinking water system.

As the city looks forward, Engen said it must continue to welcome refugees, keep Mountain Line’s zero fare service in place, and reduce the cost of college education, possibly making tuition free at Missoula College.

Missoula must also get intentional about ending hunger and providing housing for all.

Intentional, got it. Gotta be intentional. But do we really understand how intentional things are going to get?

The intention is development and storefront feel good solidarity issues, like welcoming refugees. And yet, despite all the development expanding the tax base, no amount of growth seems to satisfy the appetite for the next must-pass bond. Go figure.

While free school and free bus gets Mayoral attention, another anchor institution in Missoula is in crisis–St Pats:

In the face of what one longtime physician described as “decapitated leadership,” the medical staff at Providence St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula took a unanimous vote of “no confidence” in the hospital’s administrative structure at a three-hour emergency meeting last week.

The Missoulian obtained an audio recording of the unprecedented meeting at St. Pat’s Broadway building on March 7, but is not publishing comments from anyone who attended but did not give explicit permission to use their remarks.

Physicians at the meeting and in later interviews with the Missoulian said they were concerned about:

• The lack of local decision-making within the corporate structure of Providence Health and Services.

• The forced departure last year of St. Patrick’s CEO Jeff Fee and the elimination of the CEO role, lessening Missoula’s autonomy to make decisions critical to its future and giving more power to out-of-state regional administrators.

• The departure of several longtime and well-respected physicians.

• The shuttering last year, with no physician input, of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility, which they considered an essential component of the hospital.

• The perception that their voices are not being heard.

With the University in free-fall, the detention facility at capacity, crumbling infrastructure, public defenders and child protective services staff stretched thin–all while cruel cuts from the budget butchers in Helena looms large–the news of this no-confidence vote is really not good.

But hey, we got a new art park coming, and lots of new alcohol peddlers and casinos being built, so I think everything is going to be just fine.