Month: April 2021

by Travis Mateer

The Mayor of Zoom Town is not a stupid man. In fact, as a former newspaper man, our FOUR term Mayor understands how to frame a story, and this go around it’s going to be I’M RUNNING FOR MAYOR OF MY HOMETOWN!

That link takes you to the Mayor’s canned speech where the framing couldn’t be clearer after this concluding jab:

We’ve seen too clearly the havoc that’s the product of inexperienced, arrogant, “outsider” leadership. I stand ready to be of service for the next four years as mayor of the place we love but know can get better.

The outsider/insider dynamic is a familiar point of tension in backyard politics, and it’s one Engen will try to use to his advantage, despite championing that NEW URBAN Development Director from Florida and bringing in a new Police Chief from California.

Another HOMETOWN Missoula candidate for office, J. Kevin Hunt, is having to fight for every first-impression-making word being strung together by the Missoulian’s Jordan Hansen. Below I am reprinting, with permission, Mr. Hunt’s email detailing his problems with how his hometown status is being tarnished.

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Dear Jordan:

I respectfully must insist that a correction be published to your second updated April 22 article about municipal election filings.

You emailed me at 3:20 pm April 22, requesting a statement of why I was running, and the story then ran stating that I did not respond by deadline, which must have been imminent when you emailed me.

I responded a couple hours later upon checking my email, with a statement of who I am and why I am running for the Ward 1 Missoula City Council seat from which Brian von Lossberg is retiring. That statement began by stating that I am a graduate of Rattlesnake Grade School, Hellgate High School, and the University of Montana, all of which I presume you know are here in Missoula.

I asked that this information be included in story updates.

Ten minutes later, the story was updated without including the requested information. That was understandable, so I emailed you again asking that you include the information you requested of me, in subsequent updates.

I just read the latest update, in which you wrote that I “practiced law for 30 years in Oregon before moving to Missoula” and then simply repeated that I did not respond by deadline. As the story was twice updated over the next 24 hours, it was no longer accurate to say I did not respond by deadline, and I likewise do not understand why you cherry-picked one fact and did not even present that one fact in a manner that was not highly misleading, by virtue of your omission of all other information I supplied to you.

I GREW UP IN MISSOULA. I ran for Missoula City Council twice before attending law school. I live in the house in which I grew up. I have lost both parents in the last two years. My ties to Missoula are very strong. I am engaged to someone who attended Hellgate at the same time as me. While in law school, I frequently returned here for weeks at a time, kept abreast of things and The Missoulian even published two op-eds by me while I resided in Oregon City, one about the passing of artist and friend Rudy Autio.

Given that my campaign highlights, among other things, the effects of city policies that promote out-of-state rich speculators and very wealthy transplants moving here in droves and buying up numerous houses, it holds me in a very false light to print that I “practiced law in Oregon for 30 years before moving to Missoula,” omitting entirely my first sentence in which I said I was a graduate of a Missoula elementary school, a Missoula secondary school, and Missoula-based University of Montana.

I fail to comprehend this. I responded to an email you sent me at 3:20 pm. I then sent a followup. It seems that you either did not check your email for my response before your subsequent two deadlines, or did read my information and chose to write the story as you did.

Either way, I’m sure you agree that this is unfair in the context of the opening day of campaigns. You have branded me as merely a recent transplant when, in fact, this is my home town.

Accordingly, I request that you publish an update including the statement I provided to you. The statements by several other candidates were quite verbose, so I expect that mine can be printed without any qualms. I have subjoined it to this message.

It’s my desire to be always transparent in my public dealings, and to be courteous and responsive to the press. The people of Missoula deserve accurate and robust reporting on these important races that will decide Missoula’s future.

Respectfully,

/s/ J. Kevin Hunt
Candidate for Ward 1

by Travis Mateer

There is an aspiring City Council wannabe who filed to run for office this week worth getting to know a little better and her name is Jennifer Savage.

Greg Strandberg over at Big Sky Words gets the ball rolling by pointing out Savage is a part of Spider McKnight’s Six Pony Hitch Team, which I first wrote about last summer.

I’m glad Strandberg put this on my radar because when I first looked at Six Pony Hitch I missed the Spider McKnight came to Missoula from New York City and got some help from that little mom and pop banking firm, Goldman Sachs:

Spider McKnight is the owner of Six Pony Hitch in Missoula, Montana. She moved to Missoula from New York City where she worked at some of the world’s largest agencies including J. Walter Thompson and BBDO. As an award-winning storyteller and Creative Director, Spider oversaw creative development for numerous national and international accounts. It was also in New York that she fell in love with strategy and spent numerous hours tailing account planners, researchers, and other strategists to inform her creative work. Spider also took some time during those years to work with groups across the country working on social justice and equality. Here she developed her skills in community organizing and policy change.

Spider started Six Pony Hitch in 2010 to bring her varied experience and skills to bear for clients who are making a difference in the world. She added Design Thinking to her range of capabilities as well as business strategy through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and the Surge and Grow program through Scale Smarter Partners.

Jennifer Savage, the Communication and Content Specialist at Pony, has also utilized her communication skills for another entity I like to remind people exists, the Headwaters Foundation.

I wrote about the Headwaters Foundation in 2018, then got into some more detail last year, including pointing out that the Headwaters website was developed by…OF COURSE, Six Pony Hitch.

Here is what Jennifer Savage was doing before she glided from Headwaters to Spider’s Pony show:

Missoula-based Headwaters Foundation today announced Zero to Five, a $16.7 million, multiyear strategic initiative focused on building resiliency for Montana’s youngest children. This six-year initiative will invest $5.2 million to establish a program office anchored at the University of Montana.

“Headwaters is honored to launch Zero to Five on behalf Montana’s children,” said Headwaters Foundation CEO Brenda Solorzano. “When we asked the communities we serve how we could best allocate our resources, they told us without hesitation to focus on the children. They also told us to let communities lead the process. We’re proud to say we’ve done both.”

And here is how that Headwaters money (which was originally generated from privatizing a public asset, Community Hospital) travels to United Way:

United Way of Missoula County, a nonprofit that focuses on many community programs such as preventing childhood obesity, was chosen Friday as the “anchor” organization to spearhead a new initiative by the Headwaters Foundation of Western Montana.

Headwaters is launching its “0-5” Strategic Initiative this year, which communications officer Jennifer Savage said is a “multi-year commitment to improve the health and well-being of children and their caregivers” in 15 counties in Western Montana. The name refers to the ages of children the initiative will focus on.

Jennifer Savage is running to take the place of Bryan Von Rocket Scientist in Ward 1. Her opponent will be J. Kevin Hunt, the man who caught Engen’s manipulative move to shift a key hearing on Nick Checota’s planned development (now defunct) from a Monday Council meeting to a Wednesday Committee meeting.

I am VERY EXCITED to help inform my fellow Missoula citizens about their upcoming political options because I know the Missoula Current and other local media outlets are just not up to the task of providing critical information while simultaneously trying to maintain their access to the halls of power.

So stay tuned…

by Travis Mateer

Since our elected leaders and non-profit influencers are so fond of plans, I have developed a 4 Point Plan to Restore Trust between so-called homeless advocates and the broader Missoula Community.

Before getting to my plan, I’d like to note that NO PUBLIC MONEY was used in the development of this plan. When our so-called homeless advocates and their political handlers do their plans, it usually costs lots of public money. Not so with my plan.

Here are the 4 points of my plan:

POINT 1: a change in leadership at United Way

POINT 2: an independent review of the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness

POINT 3: a review of incidents of violence at the Poverello Center and Johnson St.

POINT 4: a critical conversation about the role of local media

My plan is now live as a petition on Facebook and I’ll be going out into our community to build support for my plan.

Now, let’s get into some of the meat behind these points.

The Executive Director of United Way, Susan Hay Patrick, has become a toxic obstructionist toward the clean-up efforts I’m directly involved in at Reserve Street. I believe this toxicity stems from a number of things Patrick is trying to keep from public view, including the PRIVATE part of the public/private partnership at the now TRANSITIONAL Safe Outdoor Space off Highway 93.

To counter the United Way’s defensive efforts to control the narrative, I went on KECI yesterday to voice my concerns:

Travis Mateer, the former homeless outreach coordinator for the Poverello Center, met with us last August to discuss his concerns about Missoula’s Reserve Street homeless camp.

When we talked to him then, he made it clear there’s no solution but things need to change. After the cleanup, Mateer says the time is now.

He tells NBC Montana his frustrations have grown significantly since the last time we talked with him.

He points to the fact a young Native American woman’s ID was found in the trash last week as proof of the problem.

He says the area has changed.

“I don’t intend to stigmatize people, but these are marginal places. An illegal encampment and bad things have happened out here, and these are the kind of places where people can disappear. I have kids, I have a young girl, I’m really interested in public safety when it comes to protecting our most vulnerable populations,” said Mateer.

In addition to finding the young Salish woman’s ID, I have also spoken with TWO women who live in the area, and both of them told me about a man with a dog who has been starting fires in the area. This was confirmed by a landowner who actually saw this guy fleeing a small fire that, were it lit in the dry summer months, could have threatened houses.

The second point of my plan is an INDEPENDENT review of Missoula’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. I’d like that review to focus on Michael Moore’s time leading that plan, the stuff he said he accomplished (which I know he didn’t), and why that plan was MOVED from United Way’s purview to the City. I would also like an accounting of where the Coordinated Entry System is currently at, and how each “front door” to homeless services is screening clients.

Like that guy from Idaho who bludgeoned Lee Nelson to death in the middle of the day, right next to where Nick Checota was set to build his BIG DRIFT.

The third point of my plan is a review of incidents of violence at the Poverello Center and Johnson Street shelter (supposedly set to close April 30th). These incidents of violence, like the assault the led to Sean Stevenson’s death, and the sexual assault of a disabled man, doesn’t give other homeless individuals in need of services much confidence that they will be kept safe INSIDE the homeless shelter.

Again, this isn’t just me saying this, I am SPEAKING TO ACTUAL CLIENTS about their VERY LEGITIMATE CONCERNS regarding safety INSIDE THE POV.

My final point is a critical conversation about how local media has contributed to the problems in our community when it comes to the homeless conversation. I credit the Missoulian, specifically, with derailing the collaborative efforts at Reserve Street after I left my job as Homeless Outreach Coordinator.

And now the Missoulian is helping Susan Hay Patrick and the United Way control the message. I’m sure it helps to have Missoulian publisher Jim Strauss on your board when some obnoxious former service provider starts trying to expose your years of political scheming and policy failures.

I don’t have a board with bankers and newspaper publishers on it to protect me, and I don’t have a budget, and I don’t have much support from those I used to work with because they exist in occupied territory where, even if they agreed with me, they could be jeopardizing their job if they speak up.

I know this risk exists because just writing a critical poem about sidewalks led City Council person Gwen Jones to angrily violate my first amendment right to free speech when she exploited her position as a board member of the non-profit where I worked to verbally berate and bully me for my modest act of criticism.

I spoke about that experience when Gwen Jones took control of the Finance Committee in a little municipal coup a few years ago.

I have some VERY GOOD REASONS to not trust the funders and public officials who feel threatened by transparency and informed questions from a knowledgeable former service provider. In order to regain that lost trust, some things need to change.

This plan is just the beginning.

by Travis Mateer

Later today I’m hoping to announce a 4 point plan to restore trust between homeless advocates backed by powerful non-profit influencers and the broader Missoula community.

Trust is a word that came up today, easily spilling from the (hopefully sober) lips of our Mayor, as he walks the fine line between bucking the cop defunders and trying to get reelected for his zillionith term as Mayor.

From the bootlicking PR piece (Missoula Current):

My goal, and that of Chief White and all our officers, is to maintain the trust of our community, to help people in need, to prevent violent crimes and protect lives and property, to build strong relationships with our residents and to continue to make Missoula a safe, welcoming community for all of her residents, regardless of skin color, gender identity, economics or religion.

I hope metaphors haven’t been made illegal, because I have a message to the narrative gatekeepers: I’m coming to crash your gates (metaphorically speaking) with what is REALLY happening amongst the socio-economically marginalized members of our community.

So stay tuned…

by Travis Mateer

Later today I’ll be posting this week’s episode of Zoom Town. The topic is the Reserve Street homeless camps. If you want to know the history and nature of my frustrations, it will be an informative episode on a complicated subject.

During the episode I read most of the Sunday op-ed written by Susan Hay Patrick of the United Way and co-signed by Jim Hick of the Union Gospel Mission and Dave Strohmaier, our County Commissioner. This op-ed is about changing the “T” in the TEMPORARY Safe Outdoor Space to TRANSITIONAL.

The first half of the op-ed is a list of all the successes clients have had since the TSOS was established at the beginning of the pandemic. The tone in which I read out these accomplishments reflects my frustration that the narrative gatekeepers who like to publicly congratulate themselves about being such great homeless advocates are undermining the cleanup efforts at the ILLEGAL Reserve Street camps.

Let’s take a look at the language being used to highlight the TSOS and minimize/ignore problems happening at Reserve Street and the Johnson Street shelter in Midtown:

We believe it is critical to change the “T” in “TSOS” from “temporary” to “transitional,” and extend this unique public-private partnership. If we don’t, many unhoused people now residing in the TSOS, in the Johnson Street Emergency Shelter (closing April 30), or in the illegal Reserve Street encampment, will camp, or live in cars in local neighborhoods, without access to the kind of structure, relationships and services that have made the TSOS a success. This will result in poorer outcomes for unhoused people, strain our emergency-response system, and pose a risk to community health and safety Let’s stick with what works.

I really don’t understand why the “transitional” continuation of the TSOS is being tied to outcomes at illegal camps on Reserve Street and the Johnson Street shelter. It almost feels like a threat coming from these homeless advocates.

I’m not going to make threats in response to this bullshit. Instead, I’m going to make a promise to bring A LOT more attention to the dynamics at ALL these locations, including the arson that is happening at Johnson Street AND Reserve Street.

Yesterday I started doing my own outreach to local businesses near the TSOS and the Johnson Street shelter. And last Friday I took some video footage of the Reserve Street camps. I am also working with a client to reconnect him to his financial resources because he has been without his resources for over a year.

This is how I work, and my approach has a track record of success, and I am bringing that record of success to Reserve Street whether the manipulative homeless advocates want me to or not.

Like I said in my email, I will work with anyone who wants to be a part of the solution. Unfortunately, I no longer see the United Way and the Poverello Center as a part of the solution, especially when they are actively trying to undermine what we are trying to do at Reserve Street before spring run-off takes all the trash, needles and wasted food down stream.

Ultimately they can’t stop us from cleaning up trash on public land (or private land where the land owner is begging for assistance).

They can send condescending emails, pretend they care about the dignity of their clients, and do other underhanded things to depict organizers as angry, hateful critics of angelic do-gooders like Susan Hay Patrick, but at the end of the day WE are the ones taking action, while THEY hide behind the rhetoric of their political backers and funding sources.

Until there is a change in leadership, I’m going to just keep doing what I’m doing. If others want to help, great. And if efforts to stop us continue, well, we’re going to see how strong that narrative-gate is.