Month: June 2019

by William Skink

How badly does the political status quo in Missoula want to protect itself from pesky critics like Jesse Ramos? Would they be willing to spend $41,000 dollars for multiple primary elections in order to keep democracy from producing another Ramos and challenging Engen’s fiefdom? You bet they would!

If the link between City Council primaries and Jesse Ramos is not clear, then here’s some reporting from the Missoula Current that brings some clarity to why unnecessary primaries are going to be held in Missoula:

While the city will conduct a primary to ensure that only two candidates appear on this November’s ballot, it has permitted more than two candidates on the ballot in the past.

In the 2015 general election, three candidates appeared on the ballot in Ward 6. In 2017, Ward 3 saw three candidates on the ballot, while Ward 4 saw four candidates.

That latter election saw two left-leaning candidates split each other’s vote, essentially handing the seat to right-leaning council member Ramos, who also ran a strong campaign.

Vote splitting is nothing new, and plenty of Democrats in Montana have benefited from libertarians peeling off votes from conservatives. We wouldn’t have Senator Tester otherwise.

But poor Missoula Democrats have had to suffer the indignity of political criticism from a young politician who had the temerity to not march in lock-step with the liberal flock who rubber stamp Engen’s dictates. This simply can’t be allowed to happen again, and thanks to these primaries, it more than likely won’t.

As I said at the top of this post, the cost to keep another Ramos from getting elected is going to be $41,000 dollars. While that may seem like a lot of money to us lowly serfs, for the political status quo that runs this town it’s nothing more than another traffic study or a few dozen feet of sidewalk.

So why would an elected official think twice about this expenditure if it means not having to listen to criticism of the Mountain Water litigation or providing a platform for another Ramos to question the MRA skim & give scheme?

Answer: they won’t.

by William Skink

It’s nice to get kudos for the work done here. A recent comment released from the spam filter offered these generous words:

Thank you so much for your reporting recently per Missoula TIF. I dont think that Missoula residents (and/or) property owners realize how much the MRA ( read – Ellen Buchanan) are breaking Missoula. The Mayor, City Council and Ellen Buchanan exist somewhere in a limbo zone between the Haves and the Have Nots. They are using their positions to desperately ingratiate themselves into the “Haves”. In doing so they are willing to sacrifice the heart/soul of Missoula to get theirs.

Tonight is a big night for Missoula. City Council will be voting on the housing policy recommendations that will greatly influence future growth (I wish we were voting on a Mayoral race with a quality candidate to challenge Engen). Some realities, like supply and demand, can’t be tweaked on a policy level. Some other realities, like skimming tax revenue to give out to various development projects, can be changed.

The role of MRA (Missoula Redevelopment Agency) is not up for a vote, since the leadership there has pledged to provide that pump-priming power the private sector so enjoys to the housing problem, but with City Council elections coming up, the role of MRA most certainly can be part of the equation of candidates.

Candidates, for example, like Brent Sperry, who is running in Ward 2 and has this to say about TIF:

Missoula’s overwhelming property taxes make it difficult for our community’s lower- and middle-income citizens, and the burden is not just carried by homeowners; it gets passed on to renters too. Many senior citizens — who helped shape Missoula with decades of their labor, volunteer services and property taxes — are now on fixed incomes and are being taxed out of their beloved city. Each tax increase is a message from city officials that our lower-income residents can be replaced by new, wealthier residents who can afford the tax burden they enact.

A large part of this problem arises from a complex tool called tax increment financing. Large portions of tax revenue are being scraped off to fund pet projects and directly benefit large corporations and wealthy developers. As a result, our essential services are underfunded and, in many cases, understaffed. Missoula is in desperate need of fiscal responsibility with an emphasis on bread-and-butter services like road maintenance and police and fire protection. As Missoula continues to see higher crime rates year after year, we need to be committing resources to ensure our community is safe.

With your support, I can become a voice to help break the tax-and-spend mentality we have been experiencing. Let’s focus on smart growth and not growth at any cost. Let’s concentrate on getting good-paying jobs and not just seasonal tourist opportunities. Let’s focus on the basics and not the frills. Let’s fund our police, fire and infrastructure, and not give millions to private developers. Let’s focus on getting Missoula back to the great community it once was.

If I lived within city limits I would most definitely be voting for Brent Sperry on just the merit of those 3 paragraphs.

I wish we had more local critical analysis of the changes intentional policies like tax increment financing have wrought in Missoula, policies obscured by technical language and sold by a self-deprecating huckster who uses humor and charm to disarm well-deserved criticism.

Until we have some resurrection of an Indy-type publication, or some other for official platform to inform locals, I’ll keep my opinion pieces (not reporting) coming as time allows.

Thank you for reading.

by William Skink

Yesterday was our family’s last day at Yellowstone. We got a late start in part because what should have been a quick stop for food in Gardiner turned into an absurd ordeal.

The first place we stopped at–a cafe–didn’t do breakfast past 9am, so at 9:10am on a Friday morning we were told to take our money somewhere else.

The second place was obviously understaffed. After standing there for 5 minutes no one had even said hello or directed us to seat ourselves. An older couple looking around expectingly got up and left. We did the same.

The third place was slammed, and people who had ordered their food were getting it, but had no place to sit. Not something this family of 5 was going to deal with.

After an hour of traipsing around with hungry kids the 4th place finally worked, but needless to say everyone was a bit annoyed at what it took to get food in one of America’s most-visited National Parks.

I have a hunch one of the factor’s contributing to our experience is the affordable housing crisis. Obviously servers and barristas in the service sector don’t make much money, so if they can’t find housing they’ll go somewhere else. I’ll get back to this thought in a moment.

Once in the park the insane traffic we had for the most part avoided on Wednesday snarled our progression to standstills several times. It took us nearly 6 hours to go 60 miles to Old Faithful. One of the long delays was Bison related, the other ones just straight gridlock from too many vehicles.

The sheer volume of tourists from around the world who want to experience the truly astounding thermal features of Yellowstone Park, combined with the increasing use of VRBOs (vacation rental by owner), is literally disappearing the service sector industry.

Our family is contributing to this problem because we didn’t stay in a lodge or camp out in tents. We had originally reserved a cabin at Chico Hot Springs, but because of my work schedule we had to find another date and almost everything was totally booked, so we rented a house for a week.

Today is our last day and even though we will be ready to go soon, we will have to wait for awhile before we can hit the road. Why? Because we will be waiting for laundry to get done, but not our laundry. A condition of our stay is that on the day of departure we are required to strip the beds and launder the sheets. We also have to empty all the trash cans around the house and put the dishes in the dishwasher.

When you’re paying a bunch of money to stay somewhere, you’re usually not expected to do the housecleaning. Here is the exact language used to justify requiring guests to do the housecleaning:

We understand that this is a chore but with the limited number of house cleaners in our area it is imperative that we get this done prior to her arrival so that we can accommodate our next guests and ensure their pleasant experience.

The reason I’m risking sounding like a snob complaining about my first world problems is not because my family’s experience is all that important, but because the housing affordability crisis is having all kinds of ripple effects, some of which may not even be understood as being a result of the housing crisis.

Ok, enough gratuitous time on the computer. Back to work!

by William Skink

I am writing this post from a cold and rainy Paradise Valley. I’ve done a mostly good job unplugging and only using my devices to do the customary tourist thing of documenting everything on the old smart phone. Mostly.

Sure, I check in from time to time to see if a shooting war with Iran has started yet, but I definitely wasn’t going to do something like write a post. Then today went to shit, tomorrow we may be driving through snow, so I said to hell with it and finally brought out my computer.

I only check Twitter on my computer, and that is where I learned about a Democrat getting in on the MRA ka-ching while ALSO doing that I want Montana’s Congressional seat thing.

So here I am, doing the predictable ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME thing because you really couldn’t script a more perfect embodiment of all that is wrong with the political engine the runs Zoo Town.

Did I mention this guy’s name yet? Ladies and gentlemen, meet proud Missoula gentrifier and shameless Democrat who wants your vote for Congress, TOM WINTER!!!

A U.S. congressional candidate from Missoula plans to build eight to 10 three-story, high-end townhomes in downtown Missoula near the Clark Fork River.

On Thursday, the Missoula Redevelopment Agency’s board voted unanimously to allow Tom Winter to proceed with work on deconstructing the older houses at 322 Levasseur St.

Winter plans on submitting an application in July for Tax Increment Financing assistance for deconstruction of two buildings and for required public infrastructure upgrades at the site, and the Thursday vote allows him to move forward without prejudicing a future application.

It wasn’t enough to have to read those words, no, I had to also glance at the accompanying picture of Tom Winters looking at me from the Missoulian website and, man, does the dude have a smug little smirk of his face.

Missoula Democrats are all in for gentrification enabled by MRA’s skim & give schemes, and they have no reason to stop if they keep getting votes.

Unfortunately I don’t think there’s time to vote the bastards out before the “recession” hits. A real winter is coming, not some smug punk grinning like he made it just in time to the feeding trough.

by William Skink

One of the more consistent complaints from all the conversations about the housing affordability crisis comes from developers and centers on the red-tape involved in the construction process. Reduce some of that red-tape, they say, and the cost of building will go down. Do council members Heather Harp and Gwen Jones understand this concept?

In the Missoula Current today Harp and Jones are championing their idea to coerce contractors into creating apprentice programs if they don’t already have one. I’ll get to why this is a bad idea in a moment. Here’s the rationale for the apprentice program:

City councilors Heather Harp and Gwen Jones created a plan that provides a bidding preference to contractors using a State of Montana Registered Apprentice Program for city of Missoula construction projects totaling $500,000 or more.

The plan is supposed to promote job training, improve the skills of the workforce, and get younger people interested in the benefits of a job in skilled labor.

I understand the rationale, and getting younger folks interested in skilled labor is not a bad thing, but will the method of coercion being proposed have unintended consequences?

Here is how the coercion will work if enough Council member vote to approve this plan:

Contractors that use apprentices for at least 10 percent of the total labor hours on construction projects owned by the city of Missoula will be given a 5 percent preference in the bidding process.

So, why is this a bad idea?

In one of my posts last week I highlighted the perspective of Hermina Jean Harold, the executive director of Trust Montana and a community organizer for the North-Missoula Community Development Corporation. Harold thinks the housing recommendations being proposed should include inclusionary zoning because both Bozeman and Whitefish eventually realized this type of zoning is a necessary component in addressing affordability.

In Missoula our civic leadership decided NOT to learn any lessons from Bozeman and Whitefish. Because of that decision they are going to need all the voluntary cooperation from developers they can elicit.

With that reality in mind, I anticipate this coercive apprentice program will be counterproductive on two levels: it does the exact opposite of reducing red-tape while simultaneously pissing off the very people our City Council members will need voluntary help from to make housing more affordable in Missoula.

I didn’t need an article from the Missoula Current to know that at least one contractor is angry about this program. Here is a comment from the post I wrote about gentrifying Missoula’s Hip Strip:

Hi William, Why yes I do know the backlash from chalenging Missoulas policies. They have just thrown us contractors a new twist to force apprenticeship programs despite every contractoir being against this. Sorry guys I raised my voice against our nazi regime, now we all pay. Not only do we pay, but so does the poor apprentice making half the money he would have if current regs were left alone.. Yes Gwen Jones is right up there nosing around in things she knows nothing about, smug and acting like a wide eyed school girl to get what she wants.

The Missoula Current also referenced a contractor who is against this resolution. Here’s the one dissenting voice allowed in the article:

Co-owner of Shadow Asphalt Jeremy Ogilvie didn’t support the resolution. Putting inexperienced people in the field is dangerous, he said, and while having an apprenticeship program isn’t mandatory, the competition among contractors would force his company to participate.

“It’s a 10-man crew, working as one,” he said. “Just like a football team, everyone has to have their role and know when to do it and how to do it or it doesn’t work. Throwing a couple high school kids out there at the wong time just means that my guys are responsible for the safety of other people that might not understand how to work around heavy equipment.”

Having to have 10 percent of the labor work done by apprentices may also mean turning away experienced workers to meet the program requirements.

Ogilevie said that his company is already training about eight young workers to load trucks, break concrete, and on other aspects of the job that don’t involve a high skillset. They have to work up to that point, he said.

“There’s going to be a lot of unintended consequences with managing it and expenses on a small business,” Ogilvie said. “We will try to follow the rules, we will become certified if we have to, but I think it’s not going to have the outcome that you want.”

Here are some questions not answered by this article: Will this program add time and money to construction projects? Will it disproportionally hurt small businesses? And, will it actually produce the desired results?

I’m assuming the answers to these questions are important to the luminous ones who come up with these ideas, but maybe that’s a wrong assumption.