Month: August 2019

by William Skink

Former County Commissioner, Jean Curtiss, has some interesting things to say about the upcoming Missoula County budget. Before getting to what Curtis has to say about County/City budget dynamics, let’s review the shared mantra from County/City officials regarding budgets and taxes: we are helpless in face of rising costs to do anything but raise your taxes because the legislature won’t give us a sales tax.

Missoula County is proposing an 8 percent tax increase for the upcoming fiscal year. Here is the mantra as reported by the MC:

“The cost of providing services through local government increases faster than our ability to pay for those costs,” said Commissioner Josh Slotnick. “It behooves us to come up with new ways to generate revenue beyond property taxes. Property tax as a tool is basically maxed out.”

The dramatic increase in the cost of housing which has resulted from constantly increasing property taxes (along with many other factors) is bringing long simmering tensions to the surface. One area where these tensions have existed for years is between Missoula County and Engen’s ever-expanding city fiefdom. Enter Jean Curtiss with comments submitted for consideration to County officials as they develop next year’s budget. Here’s how Curtiss starts:

Hello Commissioners,

Please consider the following comments for the Missoula County budget for Fiscal Year 2021.

I would ask the commission to reconsider the requested $100,000 to study the functionality and feasibility of joining the city in ownership and use of the Federal Building. I consider this a waste of public dollars.

No. 1, Mayor Engen has been strategic in pulling apart all the departments that the city and county used to share. The planning departments used to be in a joint office. He wanted more control and split them up. The grant department was a joint city county office. He wanted more control and split them up. So I find it odd that he now wants to share space.

Curtiss’ description of Engen’s moves to secure more control for himself echoes the grumblings I heard when these moves were being made. No longer in office, Curtiss has more latitude to describe the reality of how Engen’s City tentacles are encroaching on the County.

Going back to the other article, while Missoula County is starving from a slight decrease in taxable value, the City is feasting:

While the city enjoyed an $8.3 million increase in newly taxable property this year, based in part on steady investment in its urban renewal districts, the county didn’t see that increase.

In fact, Czorny said, newly taxable property county wide decreased by $300,000, from $5.9 million in 2019 to $5.6 million this year. County only mills from newly taxable property fell 70 percent, from $1.6 million to $500,000.

“The disappointing part of that is that we had a decrease in newly taxable numbers,” Czorny said. “It means we have less people to share the tax burden with, and we continue to tax the people who have already been taxed. We need more of that newly taxable property to expand our tax base.”

This reality makes what Curtiss has to say even more enraging for us County residents who disdain how Engen’s gluttonous policy wants are negatively impacting the County’s ability to serve its huge geographic responsibilities, from Lolo to Frenchtown to Seeley.

Here is more of Curtiss’ specific fiscal criticisms of this dynamic, quote at length from her appeal to County Commissioners:

I am also concerned about the proposed gift of county land adjacent to the detention center for the housing project. The county has been strategic in reserving that land for potential, unknown county needs in the future. While the use proposed sounds like it would be beneficial to the community, the details are vague about the navigation center and some important community stakeholders were left out of the planning.

This allows the city to meet some housing goals, but at the presentation on August 22, there was no mention of a city financial contribution to the project, so the investment seems one sided. I am also concerned about the mix of housing types next to each other. One section will require intensive case management of a high-risk population, the other could have families and children. I wouldn’t want to live there and worry about whether my neighbors were a risk to my kids.

This piece of land has been coveted by many, but the taxpayers bought it for public use and it should continue to be reserved. Land is the biggest driver of the cost of projects, which is why it benefits the proposed project, but also why it makes sense to keep it.

Lastly, I am concerned about several requests in the budget that transfer county tax dollars to the city’s identified needs.

No. 802: $53,950 for Homeword Landlord Liaison. This position will help folks who live in the city and focuses on services and facilities in the city so it should be on city taxes not county wide.

There is another request to fund part of the Reaching Home coordinator at $35,000. I was involved in the 10-year Plan to End Homelessness from the inception and support the work, but the county contract with the city has always referred to forming a Governance Group with county representation to oversee the work and that has never happened. This is another program that benefits mostly those in the city.

New this year is an allocation of $50,000 for winter shelter to the city. The city doesn’t have a winter shelter plan or facility. The come in out of the cold at night plan last year did not really address people without shelter in the winter. It was cold in the daytime too. The winter shelter money used to be managed by the Salvation Army and put people in temporary housing. There is not much detail about this, but it again benefits people with needs in the city and will not benefit people in Lolo or Seeley or Frenchtown who may also have winter shelter needs.

I hope Curtiss’ complaints aren’t just dismissed as sour grapes over a lost election. Engen is a savvy and duplicitous political operator who, up till now, has easily manipulated the more politically naive idealists who waft in and out of elected office in Missoula.

Taxes are going to go up, no one can stop that from happening. That means the cost of housing will go up. Elected officials will get more and more defensive, blaming the legislature or any other scapegoat they can come up with.

I hope County Commissioners realize that if they don’t stand up to Engen on behalf of County residents, he will take as much as he can from them. Curtiss’ examples might not be a significant part of the County budget, but with Engen controlling a 35 million dollar MRA slush fund that he can raid to pad the city budget (for election insulation purposes), there are some opportunities in Curtiss’ examples that Commissioners can use to distinguish themselves as actual representatives of County constituents, many of whom are being negatively impacted by a growing municipality with an insatiable appetite.

by William Skink

It’s easy to not know what the media’s not telling you.

Two minutes of hate? For Trump, make it 24 hours.

Your politics is mean girl tweets. Is that sexist?

I laughed at David Chapelle’s new show, will the T’s now come for me?

Um, Sheriff, Live PD sounds like a really, really terrible idea.

I mean, laughed really hard.

So Israel bombed a bunch of places in different countries.

So fucking easy.

Just make the conclusion entertaining please.

Thanks.

by William Skink

The summer is wrapping up, but I’m continuing to read stuff about things. Some stuff I have read includes a story about a prankster who became consumed by a conspiracy. That’s what the video below is about.

My current read is a book by Maury Terry about Son of Sam. Maybe something on that later.

by William Skink

While running errands today I was surprised to see what looked like clean-up efforts happening at the Reserve Street camps.

Since I had been under the erroneous impression that no clean-ups were happening I decided to go introduce myself. I talked to a guy on a 4wheeler and a resident of the area.

The clean-up is being spearheaded by the Union Gospel Mission and the contact, for anyone interested in knowing more, is April. The guy I talked to said they’re going to try and make it a weekly Saturday thing.

I had heard that UGM was directly involved doing outreach in the area, but I had yet to see anyone actively doing a clean-up.

The resident I talked to said there are efforts among those living out there to help as well, and that if a dumpster could be placed out there it would be used.

There is still a lot of trash, but it’s good to see some direct, positive community involvement to address it. If Kevin Davis wants to help, he should contact UGM. Their number is 549-HOPE.

by William Skink

UPDATE BELOW

I’m a bit befuddled by a controversy that’s brewing, according to the MC, over some Facebook group started by a dude named Kevin Davis. What is the intention of this Facebook group you ask? To clean up the Reserve Street Homeless Camps.

Apparently language is one of the outrage points in this controversy because Kevin Davis said “clearing”. From the link:

Activists pressing for change along North Reserve Street and social service providers found themselves at odds this week over one group’s plan to enter and clean a homeless camp near the Clark Fork River.

“Let’s improve Missoula’s Reserve Street,” a Facebook group moderated by businessman Kevin Davis, posted drone images of the camp to its page and is organizing a “cleanup” next week.

That cleanup was initially billed as a “clearing.”

In an email exchange with United Way of Missoula County, Davis said it was “shocking that we have a year-round encampment on public land along the river … too dangerous and unsanitary for the community to appreciate.”

While his group’s Facebook page initially included the goal of clearing the camp, it has since been redefined as a cleanup. Davis said it’s his desire to work “with other agencies to help steer occupants of the Reserve Street camp to safe shelters and housing options.”

It’s very weird for me to read this, having spent considerable time in my former position at the Poverello Center working in this area to keep trash from accumulating and encampments getting entrenched. I coordinated volunteer efforts with the Health Department and the Clark Fork Coalition to remove TONS of trash, and during those years the use of this area decreased.

I’ve been writing about the camps getting entrenched again because I bike frequently over the Reserve Street bridge and I see it happening. I don’t know why the clean-ups at the scale they need to happen stopped happening, but it’s obvious something needs to be done.

What seemed to work when I was involved was two large clean-up efforts, one in the spring and one in the fall. People in the area would receive ample notice of the day of the clean-up so they would have plenty of opportunity to remove personal belongings before we…gasp!…cleared the trash.

To get it done it took dozens of volunteers, including an ATV group to help transport trash bags from the more remote areas to a central location. The Department of Transportation used to donate a few staff, big trucks and dumpsters. The Sheriff’s Department would do a sweep of the area before the clean-up. And we would work all day bagging and removing all kinds of stuff, sometimes sad relics of the lives being lived out there, sometimes disturbing signs of worse.

I don’t know what happened after I left my position, but I suspect a combination of bad press and squeezed resources led to a re-prioritation of attention elsewhere. I get that. But I also understand the frustration that a town like Missoula, which talks about achieving lofty goals like ZERO WASTE and ENDING HOMELESSNESS, is seemingly allowing a portion of its river bank to be used as a combination toilet/landfill for those who don’t want or can’t stay at the places that, let’s be honest, are already full.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Do the people criticizing Kevin Davis, like Executive Director of United Way, Susan Hay Patrick, have a plan to address this area? Or are they just going to bash the intentions of this community member, then sit back and do nothing?

UPDATE

I got a text from a service provider after making a FB comment stating the clean-ups were no longer happening. I was assured that is not the case, that clean-ups still do occur, and that I had spoken inaccurately. Earlier this year I did see some kind of effort to consolidate trash near the bridge, but the pile was just left there and the bags have since been ripped open. I see some of the feral cats who live in the area as well going through the trash.

I pointed out that the actual encampments aren’t being removed. That’s because the focus is getting people into housing and not clearing out homeless camps, I was told. This is best practices. This is a thorny area of the problem, one where I guess I don’t agree with best practices.

Service providers and homeless advocates should anticipate some degree of public fall-out when a visual example of flagrant disregard for social norms is allowed to persist. Those of us who have behavior that is more easily modified by the threat of consequences like fines and jail time start getting resentful the more we see those glaring visual examples. Especially as stresses mount, like economic stresses.

Speaking as someone looking at a lot of unexpected costs from storm damages and the inevitability of increasing property taxes, I get damn pissed when I clip my bike handle on a grocery cart lurking behind brush on the bridge I bike to work on, to a job where I got passed over recently for a promotion.

At one point in the back and forth texting I was told my comment was alarmist. That is because I referenced the violence that has occurred in this area. To this I should have said GUILTY AS CHARGED. I am an alarmist, I’m a parent with three kids who spent 7 years working at the shelter and from that experience of working at the shelter my understanding of the broken mental health/criminal justice system clusterfuck has me PERPETUALLY ALARMED, especially when I see people I know to be dangerous and capable of violence if not on the right medication or with the right supportive services.

This is not indicative of the majority of people who find themselves without stable housing. And it’s not even representative of the different people temporarily calling the Reserve Street camp home. But it’s something we, as a community, should be more concerned about–and willing to take positive action to help in some way.