Month: September 2020

by William Skink

When I wrote  yesterday’s post about picking your battles, I was implying that there are bigger, more important battles to be waged.  But are those EXTERNAL battles?

For me, right now, the answer is a big NO, and I got some synchronistic confirmation of that as I listened to John Michael Greer on the Higherside Chat podcast, which you can listen to here.

The gist of the first fifteen minutes is an incredibly simple message:  instead of choosing to focus energy on the GREAT EVILS of the EVIL EMPIRE, choose instead to focus on the things you have the power to change in your own personal life.  If you do that, Greer says, you will empower yourself and that empowerment is a more effective strike against the EVIL EMPIRE than giving that great beast your undivided attention.

While the message may be simple, putting it into practice is not.

On September 5th I marked 60 days without a drink of alcohol.  After years of self-medicating with wine guzzling I decided I had had enough of my chemical dependency to booze.  

Physically, I’ve lost 40 pounds and have seen other positive impacts, health wise.  Emotionally, I’m a bit of a wreck.  So Greer’s words came at an opportune time for me to hear them.

When you think about Greer’s assertion that (I’m paraphrasing here) our greatest impact as individuals is within our small circles of friends and family in our local communities, the social devastation wrought by pandemic mitigation efforts, and the divisiveness of our toxic political duopoly, starts taking on larger, more sinister dimensions.

I don’t regret what it’s taken for me to get to this point of choosing to make changes in my personal life.  All the research I’ve done into the darker elements trying to control and direct our lives, and the personal cost I’ve endured trying to effect positive at the local level with my non-profit work, has gotten me to this point of realizing that the stakes are not just material survival for humans on a lonely planet, but the spiritual survival of the human project in an electric universe more alive than the dark forces would have us believe.

In order to push any life-affirming messages above the incessant mantra of powerlessness and hopelessness perpetrated by the death cult’s agents of empire, a messenger needs a healthy foundation from which to communicate. 

I’m working on mine one day at a time.

Stay tuned…

by William Skink

The phrase “pick your battles” means “…to choose not to participate in minor, unimportant, or overly difficult arguments, contests, or confrontations, saving one’s strength instead for those that will be of greater importance or where one has a greater chance of success.”

After reading this post by Greg Strandberg and this post by James Conner, I think these two Montana bloggers should take some time and seriously consider the battles they are picking.

When Greg Strandberg went to Walmart in Missoula last Saturday he probably didn’t expect to get an up close look at a handgun, but that is what he claims happened when he exited his vehicle to confront another motorist in the parking lot:

I was in the parking lot driving out when the car in front of me just stopped.

After about 30 seconds of that I honked at them a few times. The woman in the passenger seat waved that it was the truck in front of them that wasn’t moving.

Sure enough, this truck was just sitting there ahead of us…like it just backed out of a spot but was not…just sitting there.

The truck had a disabled veteran plate and there were numerous Trump stickers on the back window.

I got out of my car and walked up to this truck to figure out what was going on.

“Sir, we’re trying to leave the parking lot, would you please move,” I said.

I was greeted with a small handgun as the man told me to stop honking.

“Oh, so you’re going to wave a gun in my face?” I replied.

I can’t remember what he said to that, but I did threaten to call the cops on him and again repeated that all I wanted to do was leave the parking lot. I walked back to my car, and after sitting there for another 30 seconds or so, the man finally drove off.

James Conner is also writing about the confrontations he is choosing to engage in and he is encouraging you, dear readers, to do the same thing.  His targets?  Grocery store staff who don’t wear masks properly.  If you aren’t clear about the course of action Conner is recommending, the title of his post is this:  Let’s confront store employees who flout mask-up rules, and let’s file formal complaints with our boards of health.

At Walmart this morning, the checker wore his mask below his nose in defiance of our governor’s mask-up directive. I confronted him. Yesterday, at Super 1, my bagger also wore his mask below his nose. I confronted him, too.

James Conner could be ordering groceries online and then doing curb side pickup if he is so worried about what comes out of people’s noses, but instead of doing something that would give him an added layer of protection, he is instead choosing to confront hourly paid workers in grocery stores because they aren’t following the mask dictates from our Governor.

To conclude his call to action, Conner ends his post with this:

I encourage you to fight back, too. To borrow from Barry Goldwater, timidity in the presence of mask scofflaws is no virtue. Confronting barefaced employees is no vice.

Greg Strandberg and James Conner may assume they are acting righteously with the battles they are picking, but what are their decisions to escalate day-to-day encounters with their fellow Americans actually going to accomplish?

Will it stop the looting being done by central banks?  Will it stop the wars that have financially hollowed out this nation and spread death and anti-American hatred across the globe?  Will it stop corporate consolidation and the broad centralizing of power that is taking place as sociopaths in positions of power exploit this pandemic?

Bag boys with exposed noses at grocery stores and a disabled vet brandishing a handgun at Walmart are not the enemies here, even though their behavior may be seen as personally threatening to the bloggers who chose to confront them.

I hope Greg and James figure that out before the real battle begins.

by William Skink

What will Missoula look like in 10 years? Will we become the inland utopia for those fleeing failed western states? And where will all those people live? Because Missoula is a desirable location, now more than ever, our vacancy rates in the rental market continue to drop:

Published by Sterling CRE Advisors, the report found that vacancy rates in Missoula fell from 4.1% in the second quarter of 2020 to 1.2% in the third quarter. Only 115 new units have been delivered this year, though an additional 72 units are expected to open by year’s end.

If Missoula reflects national trends, then the single family homes that will be built will be bigger and the apartments will be smaller:

In the market for single-family homes, the average unit size increased over the course of the decade, perhaps reflecting the growing economic inequality endemic to the American middle class.

Meanwhile, the average apartment constructed during this period shrunk by a staggering 90 square feet, a surprisingly large sum when one considers how many New Yorkers live in 500 square foot studio apartments.

In Missoula a desirable place to be is by the river that runs through our idyllic town. What kind of development will the riverfront see in the coming years? Greg Strandberg at Big Sky Words has a post worth checking out, titled The Sleepy Inn: A Developer’s Wet Dream. With some helpful images, Strandberg speculates on the development that could ensue as the city buys up parcels of property for future development.

Just east of the downtown core, another prime piece of real estate was recently valued, that of the Missoulian building.

The area where the Missoulian building is located is just west of another controversial development project, the 4th street condos that got approved by council earlier this year. Here is KPAX in January reporting on the council’s ultimate decision to vacate their rights and greenlight this condo project:

The debate over a controversial condominium proposal that we have been following since October finally came to an end on Monday night. The Missoula City Council voted to approve the rezoning of a property in the University District and also to vacate the right of way along South Fourth Street East.

After months of debate, the decision is final — a 48-unit upscale condominium project will eventually replace the historic brick buildings that currently call Fourth Street home.

The need for more housing and the housing that is being built will continue to transform Missoula into a socio-economically stratified community of elitist homeowners and sardine can renters paying more money for less space in order to live in our little mountain town utopia. Even if our illuminated braintrust wanted to change this trend, there is not enough subsidies in the world to keep pace with the financial shenanigans of central bankers. So I guess it’s just full steam ahead until the collapse.

by William Skink

As I was walking around downtown yesterday I had a couple of experiences that made me feel like I was back working at the shelter.

First, I ran into the parking meter lady I used to chat with when I was looking for a particular client downtown. She told me she tried calling the HOT line the previous day, and even asked if I was still around. Four years after leaving my position, it’s nice to know some people still remember the work I did.

A few blocks after that conversation I started to hear yelling. As I got closer I could see a heavy-set woman sitting on a sidewalk screaming. She appeared to be in her 30’s and was very agitated.

I asked the woman if she needed help. She yelled that someone needed to get her food. I told her about the Poverello Center and she said she had been kicked out. I asked her how long she has been in town. She said 3 weeks. I asked how she got here and she said she drove and was staying at the motel. I told her about other food services and she said NO, SOMEONE NEEDS TO BUY ME FOOD RIGHT NOW!

When I asked if she got a check at the beginning of the month she got more agitated and started calling me Isaac. Since this isn’t my job anymore, I decided to keep walking and let someone else deal with this woman.

While I was attempting to assess this woman’s need, a former client recognized me and said hello. He was looking much healthier and was with his family. It was a nice reminder that people do get help and sometimes they even get better and reintegrate as functioning members of society.

I would like to write more, but WordPress has some new format that I’m not familiar with, so I’m going to l leave it here for now before I accidentally erase another post.

Have a great weekend!

by William Skink

It looks like my criticism is ruffling some feathers.

The manager of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, Kristen Jordan, penned a late night response to this post about the mobile crisis unit.

Before getting to Jordan’s response, here is some info from the County website about the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC):

The Missoula CJCC is a formal committee made up of key criminal justice system stakeholders who are either elected or senior level policymakers. These stakeholders meet regularly to discuss criminal justice reforms.
…
The CJCC will focus on data-driven and structured planning process to identify, analyze, and solve or manage system issues such as jail crowding, resource reductions, ethnic and racial disparities, case processing inefficiencies, and how to work with a challenging client population, such as those with mental illness and/or substance abuse, as examples.

So, this committee works on the systemic handling of a “challenging client population”, the same population I spent 7 years of my life trying to help. Since I’m no longer in that position, I guess I will have to rely on experts like Kristen Jordan to explain to me why my criticism is so wrong. Let’s get started with Jordan’s comment:

Good evening, Mr Skink and TC, my name is Kristen Jordan and, Mr Skink, I am the one you have quoted throughout your article. I have a few comments in response:

1. Planning for the MCT lasted for 8 months and included key, if not executive, representation from 911, MPD, Sheriff, Poverello, NAMI, MESI, City, County, City Fire, and Rural Fire.

Am I supposed to be impressed by the fact a whopping EIGHT MONTHS was taken up in planning the mobile crisis unit? And am I supposed to be further impressed that “executive representation” was involved? From my experience, “executive representation” is great for conversations about money, but not so great when it comes to the boots-on-the-ground reality that I dealt with in my job at the shelter.

2. 24/7 is NOT required at this time. TC, you mentioned data that speaks to run reports, which I have not heard of, but we did look at 911, MPD, Sheriff, Fire, and MESI call volume related to mental health calls and made the decision to NOT run a 24/7 team based on this data. Teams will be available based on data from these first responders and Law Endorsement. As I have said before, if data shows that we need something further at the end of the pilot project, we will restructure the program to accommodate this after the pilot. This is the whole purpose of a pilot project- to try something and see what works and what doesn’t’ work and then to make changes based on that information.

While data is important, the actual direct experiences of first responders and other community supports is also important. If those experiences are not acknowledged, then how do you expect to generate buy-in from those stakeholders?

3. Mr Skink, you seem to have a lot of experience. I’d like to add to that experience, the hands on knowledge and experience that was brought to the planning table by 911, MPD, Sheriff, Fire (City and Rural), The Poverello, and MESI. Added to that, is consultation with national service providers, including staff at CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregon and other key Mobile Crisis service providers from across the country. You need to know that all of these folks disagree with you on the 24/7 rollout and ensuring things are “perfect” before starting. They disagree with you because they know that getting a Mobile Crisis Team up and running is essential, regardless of whether or not our community has a perfect social service network.

Did I say things needed to be “perfect” before starting? No, I said nothing like that. Maybe Kristen Jordan should compose her email diatribes during business hours to ensure clarity of thought. Jordan continues:

YEs, mobile crisis will move part of the problem. Have you thought about all of the problems it will solve? Reduced jail bookings, reduced ER visits, reduced involuntary commitments, and for those who are committed, reduced time of commitment. Check the research related to this in peer reviewed, published articles.

It is easy to sit back and heckle subject matter experts and electeds, from local and nationwide networks. Simply because you do not agree, does not mean that extreme care and planning was not involved in creating this AMAZING program.

It baffles me that folks like you both are not happy that something different is being done, even if you don’t think it’s perfect. It’s better than what we have now.

My question for the baffled Kristen Jordan is this: how are mobile crisis units supposed to reduce jail bookings and ER visits when there are NO SAFE ALTERNATIVES to the jail and the ER, like Dakota Place, available?

I will remind Jordan of her own quote here:

“We need a Dakota House (a Missoula-based crisis residential center) times 50. If the crisis can’t be resolved, we don’t want to take them to jail and we don’t want to take them to the hospital. They just need to go to some place for observation. We are going to fall short in that space,” Jordan said.

While Jordan and I appear to agree that this lack of infrastructure is a critical gap in services, that doesn’t stop her from finishing up her diatribe like this:

Did you know that the data collected from this pilot will be used to create a better program? How is that bad or wrong? Did you google something to try and make your point here? Are either of you data or policy analysts? Are either of you doing anything but complaining? Are either of you reaching out to electeds and agency executives to offer your “insight’? Are either of you doing anything other than sitting at your computers and heckling folks who get the big picture and are busting their butts to make necessary changes? Where do you get your expertise from? How do you know we need 24/7? Do you know what data analysis entails?

This blog does nothing but stir the poop pot of division in this community. I guess that’s what you need to do to get readers.

Feel free to email me at kjordan@missoulacounty.us if you’d like to engage in meaningful dialogue. I am available and happy to discuss all of the planning, analysis, engagement, and scope of this project.

I did reach out via email, but it was not productive.

I assume Kristen Jordan is a well-meaning person trying to do good work, but I don’t think she is all that savvy regarding the political dimensions of this issue.  Having an alternative to the ER/jail was a major recommendation of the 10 year plan to end homelessness, so why are we still discussing this gap 8 years into that plan?

The mobile crisis unit will be gathering important data, we are told, but we are not told a time frame.  Will it be before the mayoral election next year, or after?  The answer to that question might help illuminate the political motivation behind this 8 month effort to address a problem this community has been talking about for over a decade.