Month: June 2021

by Travis Mateer

A Missoula Current article from earlier this week exemplifies how County Commissioners like Dave Strohmaier can become addicted to the transformative power of spending tax money, especially when the BIGGEST dealer of this tax-crack, the Feds, are gearing up for trillions in “infrastructure” spending.

What this means is a simple underpass rehab project on Orange Street becomes another opportunity for Dave Strohmaier to find some tax-crack for his figurative crack pipe. From the link:

Missoula County is urging MDT to think outside the box and work with local government to perhaps go beyond a basic rehabilitation. No timeline has been proposed.

“One thing we as county government can help with is look for and lobby for additional funding,” said Commissioner Dave Strohmaier. “I don’t want our vision of what is possible to be so constricted based upon an estimate of available funding and have a project we’re going to have to live with for decades.”

Well, Dave, MY vision is of you on your hands and knees looking for “additional funding” in the fibers of your carpet because addicts just KNOW that little morsels to feed one’s appetites can sometimes be found in unlikely places.

Strohmaier’s addiction to spending tax money on projects with no identifiable funding sources, and for a need no one is actually demanding, is kind of impressive when you step back to look at this one tiny example.

Like this part, where MDT says there’s NO MONEY to feed Dave’s addiction, and Dave’s response is to fiendishly salivate over his dealer’s new product about to hit.

Did I mention Dave’s dealer is Uncle Sam?

Strohmaier, a member of the Missoula Metropolitan Planning Organization, urged MDT to work with the city and county on possibly doing more than concrete rehabilitation. Smith said that would cost money that MDT doesn’t have.

“There’s a trillion dollars in infrastructure being debated in Washington, D.C., as we speak,” Strohmaier said. “Maybe a broader project was considered and dismissed for funding, but I would encourage us all to think as expansively as possible and look for the funding to make it happen. This is something the City of Missoula has some interest in also.”

If this isn’t a clear example of a public official with a debilitating addiction to spending public money, I don’t know what is. Strohmaier even assumes to speak for the city, where our alcoholic Mayor is now directing his INCIDENT COMMAND TEAM to find less visually obvious locations for homeless camps until the weather gets cold, which incidentally will be around the same time we have a municipal election.

It’s important to understand these addicts are only able to perpetrate their problems onto others because co-dependent enablers (also known as “voters”) keep kicking the can every election cycle instead of planning for an intervention.

Will this year be any different?

by Travis Mateer

The local reporting about the busted sale of Marshall Mountain is leaving me confused.

I actually had to check my sources to make sure I didn’t hallucinate Rick Wishcamper was involved, or that some kind of Mandela effect might be screwing with me, especially considering I referenced the OTHER person now being discussed in relation to what went wrong with the sale of Marshall Mountain in this post.

Now, in an amended filing to the Missouri couple’s lawsuit, the name being reported as offering a cash backup offer is none other than Nick Checota. From the first link:

The amended complaint states that Nick Checota, a Missoula entertainment promoter, had submitted a backup offer “for a higher price than the purchase price specified in the agreement between the Doerings and Melbys.”

The recreational community, including Mountain Bike Missoula, held out hope that the Doerings would accept Checota’s backup offer, suggesting that Checota, who hadn’t been identified as the second potential buyer at the time, intended to place the property in the public domain to maintain its current public access.

So the Doerings, who no one in Missoula is supposed to feel sorry for, got the Nick/Rick combo punch. And it will be the Doerings who will be depicted as the outsiders, while the Wisconsin/Maine transplants who share having a rich Daddy named Joe will be depicted as “a Missoula entertainment promoter” and a “longtime Missoula developer”, respectively.

I know I’m not supposed to feel sorry for the Doerings, but the details of how this blew up in their face is actually pretty terrible, considering how far along they had gotten in their relocation. And I’m not just talking about putting their house on the market. No, the house is sold and the moving van was on its way:

According to the complaint, the original contract had gone so far that the Melbys’ were already heading to Missoula. Their household possessions were also heading to Missoula with a moving company.

Mr. Melby also had quit his job in St. Louis and was preparing for his new job at Providence.

“The Melbys — including their children — were caught by surprise while in the midst of a cross-country move, without the ability to go back to the life they had left in Missouri or move forward and pursue the life they were set to establish in Montana,” the complaint contends.

That’s all pretty terrible, but when two dudes with names that rhyme with DICK bring the combined power their JoeDad Derivative Swap origins, well, what’s a SHOW-ME STATE couple to do?

Litigate in court for damages, of course.

I just hope Nick is keeping that Covid relief cash in a separate account.

by Travis Mateer

Why does Mayor Engen not trust former County Commissioner and current WMMHC Board President, Jean Curtiss? Because that is essentially what city officials are saying after WMMHC told the city its offer for the Bridge Apartments wasn’t good enough.

Here’s Curtiss explaining the decision:

“The board reviewed the initial offers and is in negotiation with the person with what we considered the best offer,” said Board President Jean Curtiss. “Our hope and goal is to have an offer that will give Western the opportunity to reinvest in our providing of behavioral health services within this community and others in Western Montana, and resulting in an ownership that will continue to provide affordable housing for the people who live there.”

I added the emphasis because continuing to provide affordable housing for the people who live there is the whole point, right? So, if a former County Commissioner is claiming that the housing will continue to be affordable for the tenants, then what’s the problem?

The problem, as you read further, is that Mayor Engen and his cronies lack CERTAINTY because WMMHC isn’t providing them with the kind of information that would guarantee quality political optics for his reelection effort.

And that has “the city” concerned:

While Western Montana said it’s seeking surety in its agreement with its chosen buyer that it will keep the 20 residents housed at an affordable rate, the lack of certainty has the city concerned.

Missoula Mayor John Engen on Tuesday said the city made a full-price offer last week and responded with a counter offer on Friday.

“We were very surprised to hear from our realtor that our offer had been rejected, because we believe the city is in the best position to keep residents housed,” Engen said. “We do not know who the buyer is because Western has not told us. We also don’t know why our offer was rejected or not subject to another counter-offer. We’ve been assured that Western’s goal is to perpetuate the current use of the Bridge, but without knowing who the buyer is, we are concerned.”

This “concern” from Engen is even more curious when you realize that Jean Curtiss worked very closely with Engen in 2012 to develop Reaching Home, Missoula’s 10 year plan to end homelessness. All you have to do is go to the city website and see who signed off on the plan.

Here’s a screen shot:

Nine years ago, John Engen and Jean Curtiss were on the same page, working to put housing first for ALL Montanans.

Now, they aren’t even speaking to each other as more low-income Montanans wonder if they will be the next victims of Missoula’s gentrification on steroids.

What is REALLY going on behind the scenes of this negotiation? If I can find out, you’ll read it here first.

Thanks for reading.

by Travis Mateer

This week’s episode of Zoom Town continues examining local political developments and issues our community is dealing with, like homelessness.

Thank you for listening.

by Travis Mateer

For the two local political candidates who have asked me to remove a post (in one case) and to write more impartially (in another) I’m going to give you some advise.

My first piece of advice, which I have communicated directly to both of you, is to listen to the damn interview I did with Jejchelle and Angela Stevenson about their brother’s death in Missoula.

When you listen to that interview you will better understand why I am NOT impartial, and have made no claims to be so.

My second piece of advice is to bone-up on the unconventional approach to journalism coined by Hunter S. Thompson. Here’s how wikipedia describes Gonzo journalism:

Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using a first-person narrative. The word “gonzo” is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article about the Kentucky Derby by Hunter S. Thompson, who popularized the style. It is an energetic first-person participatory writing style in which the author is a protagonist, and it draws its power from a combination of social critique and self-satire.[1] It has since been applied to other subjective artistic endeavors.

Gonzo journalism involves an approach to accuracy that concerns the reporting of personal experiences and emotions, in contrast to traditional journalism, which favors a detached style and relies on facts or quotations that can be verified by third parties. Gonzo journalism disregards the strictly-edited product favored by newspaper media and strives for a more personal approach; the personality of a piece is as important as the event or actual subject of the piece. Use of sarcasm, humor, exaggeration, and profanity is common.

Class dismissed.