Month: October 2018

by William Skink

Like most Americans, I followed the shit show hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh. In discussing my perspective I don’t in any way intend to minimize how traumatizing this has been for women. It’s no exaggeration to say millions of women are, to varying degrees, re-experiencing their own trauma due to the hearings and subsequent abhorrent actions of President Trump.

Being a male who has not experienced any type of sexual assault, I didn’t have the same, visceral reaction that many women are having. My experiences put me even further from what most people are focusing on because I have actually been falsely accused of sexual assault by a mentally ill person when I worked at the shelter, so due process is something I think is very important, because, though rare, false accusations do happen.

All that said, the extreme divisiveness this is having between men and women is, I think one of the intended outcomes. Why? Because by focusing on gender the real culprit goes unnamed: power.

Last week Eve Ensler stated on Democracy Now her belief that we are in the middle of a gender war:

Well, I think we’re in the middle of a gender war. I think Trump has essentially declared a war. And I think the fact that all of this—I was just listening to the speed at which this is all being done, the language that they’re talking about, plowing it through, ramming it through, getting it through. It all feels like this culture of rape, that we’re doing things so quickly that no one has time to think or breathe or see or feel.

I don’t think this is the right way to frame what’s happening. If this “war” is about gender, then why are so many women acting against other women by supporting Trump? What about their own status are they trying to protect?

I was thinking about this recently in regard to the University of Montana and how our Lee rag, the Missoulian, chose to cover the hefty fine levied against UM for violations of the Clary Act. Essentially UM got busted underreporting crimes to protect the image of UM as a safe campus. From the Missoulian:

“UM’s violations of the Clery Act and the Department’s regulations are very serious,” said the letter. “UM’s current and prospective students and employees rely on the institution to provide accurate disclosures of campus crime statistics so they can make informed decisions about their personal safety.

“UM provided its current students and employees with inaccurate and misleading crime statistics for calendar years 2012 through 2015 as part of its … (annual security reports).”

The Jeanne Clery Act requires colleges and universities that receive federal funds to report crime statistics so the public can assess campus safety.

In the past, UM swept rape reports under the rug. However, since a federal investigation into the flagship for mishandling reports of rape and sexual harassment and an ensuing 2013 agreement between the campus and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, UM has worked hard to focus on student safety.

Rape culture flourished as UM leadership chose to suppress crime statistics instead of facing up to reality. UM is still trying to recover, so any negative story is a big PR problem. Luckily for UM, the very next day the headline read as follows: Survey: University of Montana students generally feel safe on campus.

Kathy Best, the female editor of the Missoulian, and Keila Szpaller, the female reporter who wrote this “article”, are doing the University of Montana a big favor by following up a critical story with this crap instead of a story about why Royce Engstrom, the president at the time of this scandal, is still getting a six figure paycheck from UM to teach.

Making things worse, if you get beyond the misleading headline you find that when the sun goes down women do not feel safe on campus:

The executive summary of the spring 2018 American College Health Association National College Health Assessment II notes that 83.4 percent of UM students reported feeling “very safe” on campus during the day.

However, at night, that number drops to 31.9 percent overall — and only 19.5 percent for women.

Faced with a frat boy on the Supreme Court, this example may not seem like a big deal, but it’s worth considering if you think there is a gender war going on. If we were instead thinking in terms of power it makes sense that plenty of women are going to choose to protect their own status and access to power instead of joining the resistance.

Pushing the idea of a gender war is counterprodutive to the electoral aims of Democrats, as well. It may turn out enraged women in support of Democrats, but conservatives are just as fired up after the perceived smear job against Kavanaugh.

Both sides benefit from keeping the focus on gender because when gender gets all the attention, Kavanaugh’s pro-corporate, pro-surveillance and pro-torture positions are ignored.

And now he’s ensconced on the highest court of the land for life.

by William Skink

Mr. Big Sky Blogger, Greg Strandberg, is either being ignorant or dishonest when he claims that “Missoula Puts Up Drunks For Free For 13 Years”, which is the title of this incredibly misleading post bashing chronic homeless individuals and the housing-first programs that serve them.

Greg Strandberg is more than capable of doing research to get accurate information. It takes seconds using the Google to find out that subsidized housing programs require a portion of income for housing–usually 30%.

The title of the post is bad enough, implying “Missoula” has provided “free” housing for 13 years, but when you get into the post the ignorance/dishonesty just gets worse with crap like this:
 

I saw two stories yesterday on the Missoula Current that were kind of related.

The first involves a 12-unit wet housing complex for homeless people.

Yep, you heard right – the City of Missoula is going to use your tax money so chronically drunk people can have a free apartment.

In fact, the city is already doing this. They’ve been doing it for 13 years.

The place is called the Uptown Apartments, located across the street from the courthouse.

Currently there are 14 people staying at the Uptown Apartments, and 5 of them have been living there rent-free since the place opened in 2005.

Where does Strandberg get the notion that these folks are living rent free? The Missoula Current article says nothing about the cost of this housing, free or otherwise. So is Strandberg just making shit up? I think he is.

This isn’t the first time Strandberg has made shit up and spread inaccurate misinformation. And this post isn’t the first time I’ve tried to provide some education.

Here are some examples:

Big Sky Blogger Still Ignorant About Homelessness

Resentment As Political Strategy

Self-Promoter And Wannabe Politician Greg Strandberg Doesn’t Know Squat About Homelessness

Reptile Dysfunction Endorses Greg Strandberg For City Counsel

Beware The Opportunistic Populism Of Politician Wannabe Greg Strandberg

There is lots of good information in these posts because I know what I’m talking about, a direct result of 10 years of experience. I’ve talked to hundreds of people with varying degrees of ignorance about system overloads in ERs, jails, nursing homes, and the ones willing to listen usually came away with a better understanding of what’s happening and how much cheaper it would be implement housing first models.

Greg Strandberg is not ignorant, which makes the shit he peddles about homelessness and addiction more disgusting. He’s very obviously trying to emulate strategies of scapegoating and fear-mongering to benefit himself because he saw it work for Trump.

The drunks don’t get free rent, Greg. If you don’t believe me, call MHA and ask.
 

by William Skink

I was not surprised to read in the Missoula Current that local law enforcement is struggling to hire and retain officers amidst increases in crime, which is leading to significant burn-out. I saw this up close and personal with one officer I frequently interacted with during my work at the shelter, to the point of being specifically concerned that his ability to deescalate nuisance issues with challenging street people was being compromised.

Thankfully nothing happened before he was able to retire. 

It was very eye-opening to see his burnout progress, especially as I was dealing with my own burnout. I’ll make the obvious point that the last type of profession you want to see suffer from burnout is a profession that’s responsible for using lethal force.

Confronted with chronic staffing issues, which is just one factor leading to burnout among law enforcement, how should Missoula respond? Well, how do our leaders always seem to respond to challenging issues? Yes, they study it!

While the new officers will help with staffing shortages, the City Council and Police Department will conduct a study within the next year that will guide the department to proper staffing levels, assessing how many officers are needed per capita and suggest ways to increase efficiency.

A city plan to annex roughly 3,200 acres west of Reserve Street is also on the radar, Brady said, and he hopes the study will help determine the number of officers needed to cover the area.

I’m not inherently opposed to studying problems. Without accurate, up-to-date data, reacting to problems could be much more problematic and inefficient. But when part of the problem is a lack of funding, and study’s cost tens of thousands of dollars, I’m concerned that the act of studying the problem becomes the main action taken by city leaders, especially when recommendations to address problems requires more funding than we have (or have prioritized).

That is precisely what happened after the city funded a jail diversion study. The recommendations weren’t a priority for a Mayor running for reelection and trying to keep tax increases as low as possible. Here is how MC reported it in July of 2017:

In an effort to hold the line on tax increases, the Missoula City Council on Wednesday quashed a $39,000 request to maintain landscaping in the city’s greenways, and $50,000 to fund elements of the jail diversion plan, saying this year’s budget was too tight.

Yeah, the budget was tight, but Missoula’s political leadership loves studies so much that instead of funding jail diversion recommendations they managed to find money to study not producing waste:

The council picked up several other funding requests, including $10,000 for street maintenance, which it approved, and $14,000 for a Zero Waste Baseline Study, which it also approved.

Another problem Missoula has with funding essential services is the proliferation of Urban Renewal Districts and the use of Tax Increment Financing. Redirecting taxable value into URDs has been effective in developing blighted parts of Missoula, but with all this growth in URDs, the general fund is being starved.

While MRA became quite comfortable throwing big chunks of money around to help needy developers, like the Lambros clan, the only way to ensure these pockets of development can get essential services, like police, is to raise property taxes to get more money into the general fund.

Last month it appears MRA finally got a clue when panhandling developers were finally told no, they wouldn’t be getting any more TIF candy to satiate their boo-hoo cost overruns. Apparently, had Ellen Buchanan known Sailor Engen would gobble up TIF funds to cover the surprise budget shortfall, that nearly quarter million handout to the library wouldn’t have been handed out:

As part of the effort to balance the city of Missoula’s budget this year, Mayor John Engen requested $750,000 from the TIF districts. By law, that meant that about $1 million also was returned to the Missoula County Public Schools, and $500,000 to Missoula County.

“We always get a lot of requests for projects that enhance the community and don’t create new tax revenues,” Buchanan said, adding in a memo that the proposed practice “would eliminate funding for projects which are tax exempt. We have already proposed and the board approved suspending funding for new MRA initiated public infrastructure projects, such as street and sidewalk projects” in Urban Renewal Districts II and III.

Buchanan added that if she had known the city would ask for the remittance, the MRA wouldn’t have pledged in May to give the new Missoula Public Library $200,000 to help cover the costs of the top floor after a shortfall in library funding for what’s expected to be a $36 million building project.

As Missoula grows and gentrifies, and hosannas are sung to tech development and urban renewal, our first responders are being asked to do too much with too little.