Month: July 2020

by William Skink

There is an unspoken rule that if Trump supports something, then it must be bad. This perspective doesn’t care about logic or evidence. Trump is such an obvious, orange-skinned menace that if he supports something, the reactionary resistance must oppose it.

Getting school-age kids back into school, like everything else about this pandemic, has become a partisan issue, with Trump coming down on the side of reopening. For parents like me who see the dire need for their kids to be back among their peers, and who see the risk of transmission as being fairly minimal, the hope that my kids could get a small modicum of normalcy by returning to school next month is disappearing with every article like this (from Politico):

President Donald Trump has been on a rampage against public schools and colleges all week, threatening to use the power of the federal government to strong-arm officials into reopening classrooms.

But his effort is now creating a backlash: An overwhelming alignment of state and even Republican-aligned organizations oppose the rush to reopen schools. The nation’s leading pediatricians, Republican state school chiefs, Christian colleges and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have all challenged parts of Trump’s pressure campaign.

The politicization of this critical topic ensures logic and rational thinking won’t be widely deployed to assess the actual risk of reopening schools.

So far it looks like kids are not serious vectors in the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus:

A commentary published in the journal Pediatrics, the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, concludes that children infrequently transmit Covid-19 to each other or to adults and that many schools, provided they follow appropriate social distancing guidelines and take into account rates of transmission in their community, can and should reopen in the fall.
…
In a French study, a boy with Covid-19 exposed over 80 classmates at three schools to the disease. None contracted it. Transmission of other respiratory diseases, including influenza transmission, was common at the schools.

In a study in New South Wales, nine infected students and nine staff across 15 schools exposed a total of 735 students and 128 staff to Covid-19. Only two secondary infections resulted, one transmitted by an adult to a child.

“The data are striking,” said Dr. Raszka. “The key takeaway is that children are not driving the pandemic. After six months, we have a wealth of accumulating data showing that children are less likely to become infected and seem less infectious; it is congregating adults who aren’t following safety protocols who are responsible for driving the upward curve.”

The health department in Missoula seems to be backing up this claim when they exempted children under the age of 12 from the mask requirement for public spaces. I don’t think the Missoula County Health Department would exempt kids if there wasn’t evidence indicating they are not transmitting the virus.

Are Democrats going to feel obligated to oppose reopening schools now that Trump has strongly come out in support of reopening? What do Democrats actually believe about the safety of kids returning to school? How do they conduct their personal lives?

To answer that last question, I was at Walmart the other day stocking up on necessities (Legos) when I noticed a masked-up state representative with three kids in tow. None of the kids looked to be over the age of 12, and that’s good because none of them were wearing masks as they ran all over the place while the Democratic politician was at self-checkout scanning her groceries.

This Democrat politician obviously doesn’t see her kids as potential vectors for transmitting the virus. If she did, then her actions could be interpreted as dangerous and/or reckless. Personally, I don’t bring my kids along with me to shop for groceries because if there is any risk, keeping them at home is an easy mitigation step to take. But if I had to take them with me, I wouldn’t feel bad about keep their faces mask-free.

Getting kids back to school is not just important for our kids and their academic/emotional development, it’s also critically important for all the struggling parents out there feeling immense anxiety about the uncertainty of reopening.

If schools don’t reopen next month, what are parents going to do for child care? If they can find child care, will they be able to afford it? How many people still out of work have school-aged kids? Are kids going to have to wear masks at school? At recess?

There are many questions with no clear answers, and every day brings scarier and scarier headlines about the resurgence of cases. As fear rises, the ability to think rationally diminishes, making us more susceptible to exploitation by the sociopaths who see this pandemic as an amazing opportunity to seize more power and wealth for themselves.

by William Skink

History does not stay locked in the past, static and unchanging. There is immense power in how historical events are defined and remembered.

I recently came across a podcast about the Yellow Fever. While I had heard something about a Yellow Fever outbreak in America, I had no idea when it happened, where, and who was involved.

If you don’t have time to listen to the podcast, below the fold is a description of the Yellow Fever from Ras Ben’s website. For historical parallels, think of Stephen Girard as the Bill Gates of this story. Enjoy your history lesson.

Continue reading “What Can We Learn From The Story Of The Yellow Fever Outbreak Of 1793?”

by William Skink

Having recollected the vast sum of money generated by the sale of Community Medical Center, and now controlled by the Headwaters Foundations, I thought it might be good to get to know some of the people controlling 100 million dollars and change.

On the board the only person that really stood out was Richard Opper, a Bullock lackey who ran into some controversy in 2016 while he was director of DPHHS:

A former state auditor has sued the state of Montana, alleging she was wrongfully discharged for doing her job: uncovering misuses of state and federal funds at the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Carol Bondy, who was the DPHHS Audit Bureau Chief for 14 years before having her job terminated in December, also named the agency’s director Richard Opper in the suit filed Oct. 18 in Lewis and Clark County District Court. The suit makes several allegations that top state officials sought to hide requested information from legislators and bent or broke state contracting rules, citing audit work conducted as early as 2009. It also alleged without detail that the “practices were directed by persons located within the Governor’s office,” according to court documents. Bondy also argues in the suit that her firing violated state and federal labor laws, in part, because she had faced no previous discipline and she was banned from accessing her office while under review.

While one may chalk this up to politics, it should be noted DPHHS handled a recent budget shortfall in a manner that absolutely decimated support services for the most vulnerable. Keep that in mind when we get to the corporate-speak.

Next up is Brenda Solorzano, Chief Executive Officer. Here is her recent pedigree:

Headwaters Health Foundation has its first chief executive officer. Brenda Solorzano has been hired as the CEO. She comes to the Missoula-based foundation from her position as chief program director at Blue Shield of California Foundation in San Francisco.

At Blue Shield, Solorzano led the overall strategy, design, implementation and management of the $30 million grant-making portfolio. She is an attorney and has more than 17 years of experience in health philanthropy.

“Effective philanthropy should be in partnership with community, and the role of foundations should be about helping make change happen that benefits underserved communities,” Solorzano said in a news release.

Coming from San Francisco, Solorzano should know a thing or two about underserved communities, since rampant gentrification has done such a great job of making sure there is a ROBUST need for the kind of grant crumbs Solorzano will oversee in her new mountain locale.

Next up, Mynor Alejandro Veliz, Chief Financial Officer. Here’s what I found relevant about his background:

…he served as finance manager for Starbucks and oversaw the development of the annual operating budget and quarterly forecasts and supported the development of the strategic and operating plans for the 2,500 stores in the US and Canada.

Veliz attended the Harvard Business School Leadership Development Program. He holds an MBA from Eastern Washington University and a BA in business finance from the University of San Carlos in Guatemala. He is a member of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs and the Harvard Business School annual global summit planning committee.

So we have a political partisan, a health insurance executive, and a Starbucks finance manager leading the effort to direct this trickle-down philanthropy toward naseuatingly articulated visions of change that sound like this:

With a deeply resonating, unified community voice Montanans told us long-term success in improving the health of our communities begins with addressing the underlying issues that keep people unhealthy.

In our corner of the world, some families live in cars, children are exposed to high levels of violence and trauma early in life and working people struggle to find warm houses to live in. There are children who are, more often than not, hungry. In Western Montana, too many people struggle in the grips of addiction, and young men and women commit suicide at a staggering rate.

Montanans told us these situations are the result of deeper problems in their communities. But they also told us that together we could change the downward trends facing our state, that by working together Montanans can thrive.

And, um, please, just forget we did things like preside over severe Medicaid cuts when the going got tough, we raised your premiums when our bosses needed another private plane, and we got over $60,000 in public money for a Brooks Street Starbucks location.

Like so much in Missoula, when you look beyond the glitz and glamour of surfaces, a very different picture starts emerging about the forces running this town.

Speaking of glitzy surfaces, guess who developed the website for the Headwaters Foundation?

That’s right, I could hardly believe it myself. Spyder McKnight’s Six Pony Hitch created the slick online vehicle that delivers dreck like this:

We know that many people living in Western Montana have been left out of decision-making conversations that deeply affect their lives. We believe it’s time to change these conversations, change the system and change the power dynamic between funder and grantee.

That’s why we practice a new kind of philanthropy.

The kind of philanthropy that builds relationship on trust, that offers multi-year investments when possible, that streamlines processes and allows us to be a true partner.

With community at our core and trust as our default, we’ll put this new kind of philanthropy to work by investing more than $4 million in 2020 into community-driven solutions that reduce the social and economic barriers to health and wellbeing across four grantmaking programs: Strategic Initiatives, Policy and Influence, GO! Grants and Sponsorships.

Though a financial depression appears imminent (because we calculate debt by the Trillions now), don’t worry, this foundation is being led by a trifecta of politics, health insurance, and corporate finance, so it’s all good.

Anyone else see anything wrong with this picture?

by William Skink

Can you read his lips, Missoula? NO NEW TAXES! And there’s money, apparently, for MORE training for police, MORE facility build-out, and, and, and…:

Missoula Mayor John Engen proposed increased funding for law enforcement and affordable housing, as well as about $23 million in capital improvements without raising city property taxes in a preliminary 2021 fiscal year budget he presented Wednesday.

Engen told the Missoula City Council the his preliminary budget is “light on numbers and heavy on ideas” because of the “remarkably strange times in the world, nation, state and local government.”

A lot gets accomplished in these two paragraphs: appease police with more money, calm the concerns of property owners with no tax increase, set up the Mayoral election year (2021) with this fine example of fiscal balancing, then set up the pandemic as a potential scapegoat if/when the economy continues going to shit.

The real trick will be how Engen diffuses community calls for defunding the police, and he’s going to use the absolutely broken health care/criminal justice system to do it:

Despite calls for “defunding” law enforcement, Engen proposed investing more money in the Missoula Police Department for training, protective equipment, a place to change clothes and shower, and a “robust body-worn video system.”

First I have to note how amazing the word “robust” is. If you want to make your shitty idea sound STRONG, HEALTHY and VIGOROUS just slap ROBUST before whatever idea you are wanting to put on this linguistic form steroids and you will have a ROBUST BODY-WORN VIDEO SYSTEM!

Missoula police already get a lot of training, including Crisis Intervention Training. I would like to see CIT supported and expanded to include more community involvement for cross training WITH law enforcement. Instead some in our community are pushing for implicit bias training:

There is one area a few council members want changed — implicit bias training. That means learning how to respect, use active listening, the right tone of voice and neutrality with all races.

Missoula police spend about 800 hours total in orientation training, about four hours are dedicated to implicit bias training.

“Just to clarify that’s four hours out of the 800 hours that is for the implicit bias training,” said Missoula City Council member Heather Harp. “Correct,” White said.

“So that’s half of 1% of training roughly,” said Harp. “If that’s your math,” White said.

“To me that seems very inadequate for what we need with the challenges we are facing today,” Harp added.

Heather Harp and the rest of Council should know a thing or two about inadequacy, considering they have been presiding over a FAILED COMMUNITY RESPONSE to people suffering mental health problems and housing instability.

Since police didn’t create our mental health crisis, and should NOT be seen as the prime solvers of this crisis, how is our enlightened brain trust proposing to address this problem with non-police resource?

To appease those calling for shifting funding to a community response model for people suffering a mental health crisis, Engen proposes a paltry $75,000 dollars:

The preliminary budget also included $75,000 to match a grant supporting a behavioral-health mobile crisis unit, which would establish a 10-month pilot team of mental health professional who would provide first response to calls for residents experiencing behavioral health crises in an effort to reduce the need for law enforcement and first responder interactions.

To emphasize the offensiveness of this chump change, in the recent past Missoula has shelled out $800,000 for a stupid little bridge on West Broadway, hundreds of thousands to bail out the art park, and $27,000 for an ugly blue dog sculpture named Scratch.

If our elected leaders were actually serious about alleviating pressure on law enforcement’s responsibility to respond to mental health issues, they wouldn’t half-ass some pilot program, especially when the Homeless Outreach Program I created at the Poverello Center did exactly what they are proposing this mobile unit do.

$75,000 and some matching funds is not going to cut it. But times are tight, right? Where would millions come from to create better outcomes for people in mental health distress?

Every once in a while I like to remind readers that a BIG public asset called Community Medical Center was sold off at a value estimated, at the time, to be worth upwards of $70 million dollars:

The firm determined that the fair market value range of the business enterprise of Community Medical Center is between $67 million and $75 million, so the actual sale price will be right near the high end of what the firm estimated as the hospital’s worth.

Liquidate a public asset and there should be some public benefit, right? So what happened to all that money?

I spent some time this morning trying to find the name of the organization that was created to hold all that money from the sale of Community Medical Center. Most of the stories about the sale stop in 2015, after an aborted 10 million dollar gift to the University of Montana created some controversy.

Here’s an MTPR article from that time that explicitly states why the money from the sale should have a public benefit:

A Missoula Community Medical Center board member says the only issue left to resolve in the sale of the hospital is whether $10 million from the sale can go to the University of Montana Foundation. But Attorney General Tim Fox appears to be taking a broader view.

Fox approved the sale late Monday. He has jurisdiction because Community is a non-profit hospital, and is being sold to a for-profit partnership between Billings Clinic and RegionalCare Hospital Partners. State law says the purchase price has to be put back into a charitable organization with a similar purpose to the hospital.

Fox approved the sale for approximately $75 million, but hasn’t yet decided on the plan Community Medical Center, or CMC, sent him for how to distribute the money.

“Our office didn’t get a proposal from CMC until I believe December 15, and in keeping with our feeling that these types of decisions should be made in a transparent way, and that the public should be allowed to weigh in, and that we should have the time as an agency to properly review the decisions that they expect to make, we decided that we would approve the transaction, but not the plan for distribution until we’ve had such time to properly review it, and also allow the public to review it and comment.”

There was no news about this money for years. Then, in 2018, an article caught my eye, so I had to go back to my blog post to get the name I had been looking for: The Headwaters Foundation.

Let’s take a look at the nauseating language in this foundation’s ABOUT page that suspiciously omits any reference to the fact this money is OUR MONEY from the sale of a PUBLIC ASSET:

Headwaters Foundation was born from community. A community invested in Western Montana. With more than $100 million in assets, our mission is to work side-by-side Western Montanans to improve the health of our communities. Our vision is a Western Montana where all people, especially the most vulnerable among us, are healthy and thriving.

We believe in and commit to these values.

No, you were “born” from selling a non-profit hospital to for-profit healthcare parasites, and now a few people have nice salaried jobs dribbling out crumbs to non-profit panhandlers. Here’s more:

Trust Community Expertise

We always start by listening, because we trust that our communities have the answers. That trust has allowed us to reshape the traditional dynamic in philanthropy and put the power back into the hands of those who know our communities best.

Yeah, you had to listen to AG Fox and take back that 10 million “gift” to UM because of conflicts of interest. Then you went underground and came up with an innocuous name that doesn’t connect this foundation to the sale of Community Medical Center. I guess this had to be done in order to RESHAPE THE TRADITIONAL DYNAMIC IN PHILANTHROPY, which I interpret to mean divorce the money from the history of where it came from, and what it’s supposed to be used for. But we’re not done yet deconstructing this manipulative foundation:

Better Together

Montana is a state where everyone pitches in, rolls up their sleeves, and does the hard work. Headwaters Foundation is not just a funder, but a true partner. We are committed to finding solutions to Montana’s deepest problems. We are scrappy, resourceful and stronger together.

Ok, then FULLY FUND a mobile crisis team, you committed and scrappy institution sitting on our public money. Let’s start with a million dollars.

Value Every Voice

We know that each Montanan has a unique story, but we must earn the right to hear it. We lead with love and humility, inclusivity, and a commitment to meet our fellow residents where they are. We foster justice in our work and start with an open heart and open mind. Not all Montanans think alike, vote alike, or have had the same life experiences. But by building empathy and trust, we are able to come to agreements about what best serves our communities.

This saccharin language makes me want to projectile vomit. And one has to wonder, with all this nice sounding rhetoric, why isn’t the Headwaters Foundation transparent with where this money originated from? Here is how the ABOUT page concludes:

Be direct

We are not afraid to have tough conversations. We ask for what we need to be successful. We get to the point, instead of sidestepping the real issues. We speak our minds. We neither dance around the issues nor waiver behind the fear of being honest.

Ok, Headwaters, let’s be direct: where are the results? You somehow turned 70 million dollars into 100 million dollars, meanwhile the mobile crisis unit pilot program is getting literal chump change to slap another band-aid on the systemic inequities and systemic crises resulting from Missoula’s inability to address problems people like me have been shouting about for years and years.

Are you tired of being placated yet, Missoula? Or is your capacity for taking this bullshit unlimited?

by William Skink

In January Missoula service providers conducted the point-in-time survey, an annual count of people experiencing homelessness. A few months ago the data was released and preliminary results indicated homelessness was down:

Preliminary numbers from the annual Point-in-Time study show Missoula’s homeless numbers went down this year. Now, experts wonder what the pandemic means for next year.

In Missoula’s district, which includes Missoula, Mineral and Ravalli counties, 354 people were marked as homeless. That’s down from the peak in 2015 at 538 but up from our low point in 2005 at 245.

Today the reporting from NBC Montana has the Poverello telling a different story:

Montana’s largest homeless shelter is seeing an uptick in those living unsheltered.
…
“We have pretty significant growth of people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, so they are out in the community, so I think people in Missoula are seeing that as they see the encampments grow,” Poverello Center director of development and advocacy Jesse Jaeger said.

I don’t doubt an uptick is happening. Part of that is the usual seasonal uptick. And I’m sure the ripples are starting, though it won’t be until the end of this month where things will get a little more serious for a lot more people.

I wonder what the plan will be this year when the cold returns. I don’t think the Salvation Army has been open for day services since the pandemic got serious here in the states, and I somehow doubt the city has enough Covid money to entice them to open their doors to winter overflow.

The city will have the Sleepy Inn, will that be part of the winter solution? Or does the Mayor have other solutions in mind?