Month: April 2018

by William Skink

The under the bridge footage is Reserve Street. The lyrics after the moth stuff are Neruda’s.

by William Skink

On Monday there was a “State of the Community” event put on by City Club Missoula. John forever-mayor Engen, Seth pretty-boy Bodnar and Dave nanny-state Strohmaier were the featured speakers leading the PR effort to convince those in attendance that Missoula is doing just fine:

Bodnar, Engen and Strohmaier were thin on specifics related to policy on Monday, but all spoke at length in general terms about the need for collaboration among the university, the city and the county.

Engen and Strohmaier addressed the need to develop more affordable housing options as housing prices continue their historic trajectory upward here. The two elected officials also talked about the need to preserve Missoula’s unique culture, clean environment and way of life as development puts pressure especially hard on those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum.

Instead of doling out bullshit PR talking points, here is what these three men need to be doing.

Strohmaier and the other two County Commissioners need to get a handle on the shit show that is the Sheriff’s Department. The bitter campaign between Clark and McDermott apparently never stopped, and with recent articles in the Missoulian, it would appear that Clark’s warnings have some merit.

Engen needs to buckle down, not just on affordable housing, but also on what happens when people don’t have housing in cold climates: they fucking die. Another homeless man died in downtown Missoula late last week of exposure. It hasn’t been reported in the news yet, but it happened, and he died in the heart of Missoula’s bar scene.

And Bodnar needs to realize that early indicators of his leadership are starting to wear the honeymoon thin. Getting rid of the guy they threw a $70,000 bonus at, bringing in Jim data-boy Messina, and now a media misstep eliciting a fuck, fuck, fuck reaction from a Dean when he realized at-risk academic programs might finally be named and reported on.

A new day is not dawning in Missoula. Anyone who tells you that is more than likely getting financially compensated for lying to you.

by William Skink

For some reason I’ve been putting off writing about the Missoula Independent fighting for the right to collectively bargain the degree of their independence from the Lee Imperial Fleet of media holdings. My reluctance is not because I don’t support the intent, voted on unanimously, by the eight eligible staff to protect their future and the future of the Indy.

I am in full support of the Indy staff choosing to organize a stronger voice capable of penetrating the cold, corporate boardroom where profits have priority over everything else. Really it’s now or never. For staff, the symbolism of relocating to Missoulian headquarters was the catalyst. For anyone who checks in with the Indy online, the aesthetic changes seem like a sign of things to come.

I have been a reader of the Indy for as long as I’ve lived in Missoula, 18 years (and counting). I used to read Molly Ivins’ column every week, then I read George Ochenski’s. When the Indy, under the shitty editorial direction of Robert Meyerowitz, lost Ochenski after 12 years, I joined the chorus of concern over what seemed to be happening.

What was happening was this: the business model was ripped like a rug out from underneath alt weeklies. Bleeding out ad revenue to Craigslist and trying to adapt to young consumers and their expectation of free content was more than Saint Matt Gibson could handle.  Despite his Herculean efforts to carry the paper, he finally gave in to the benevolent corporation:

Gibson owned the Missoula Independent for 20 years before selling the newspaper to Lee Enterprises a year ago.

In his letter to advertisers, Gibson said the weekly has been losing money and only persisted initially because of his personal commitment to the paper and now the commitment of Lee.

“For the last 11 months, Lee Enterprises has carried the weight,” he wrote. “Despite the very real financial issues, Lee’s treatment of the Indy and its staff since acquiring it last April has been generous, patient, and wholly above reproach. The pressures on the business will persist whether the staff unionizes or not.”

The organizing effort, he said. “is naïve and extremely shortsighted.”

Actually, Matt Gibson, what tends to be short-sighted is the quarterly expectations of shareholders for a return on their investment. They may even want to get rid of you if the rumors that circulate in our little mountain town ever make you more of a liability than an asset to their bottomline.

Even though I’ve had my ups and downs with the Indy, I still look forward to the new issue every Thursday. I usually start with what Dan Brooks has to say, then move on to the latest review from Molly Laich.

I know I’m not alone in my hope that the Indy can preserve its identity amidst the borg-like absorption into the Corporate Mothership, Lee. The road ahead won’t be easy, but nothing worth fighting for ever is.

by William Skink

The suffering of Palestinians under Israeli apartheid conditions continues. No humanitarian intervention is coming to save the day.

#themtoo?

by William Skink

Last Saturday I went out to the Reserve Street bridge for a clean-up, but I was a month late. The link my buddy sent me didn’t load all the way, so I didn’t see the clean up–organized by UGM (Union Gospel Mission)–happened last February.

Since I was out there, and had someone accompanying me, I took the opportunity to make the rounds I used to make when I worked at the shelter coordinating the outreach team. If there was a substantial clean-up effort in February, it was hard to tell. I saw at least a half dozen encampments with twice that number of tents.

The last major clean-up in the area happened last August. The Missoulian’s coverage featured a tearful, front-page image of an older woman looking miserable and dejected (and holding a glass pipe). I wasn’t able to go to the clean-up because it was during a work day, but I did write about why the clean-up is needed and why the reaction from a letter to the editor decrying the effort was ignorant.

If there had been follow up from the media on the clean-up effort they would have found that it wasn’t just a few tons of trash that got removed from under and around the bridge that day. Nope, it was 25 TONS of trash that got removed. That number is more than triple the amount of past clean-ups.

Unfortunately, from what I’m hearing, the media coverage has spooked the Clark Fork Coalition from participating in future clean-ups, so how robust any future efforts will be is an open question.

I guess that’s good news for the community of people out there generating tons of trash, injecting meth (I was told the amount of needles last summer has also significantly increased) and only occasionally stabbing and killing each other. If that sounds harsh, I’m not sorry, that’s the reality.

Unless there is some tragic event, or another clean-up for a reporter to show up and photo-op a sob-story about, the Reserve Street camps will just go on being ignored by this rapidly growing Missoula community leaving more and more people behind. What else can be done? Treatment is not accessible, the jails are full, and the cost of housing continues to skyrocket.