by Travis Mateer

Since I’m still on the road with the fam, this post will be quick. I probably wouldn’t even have written this if I hadn’t been unable to sleep in the middle of the night, leading me to poke around the Missoula County website.

Under the “Community” tab you can find a list of people directing the County’s version of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, which goes by the name Missoula Development Authority. When I come across lists like this one, I like to do simple searches on the names to see what comes up.

When I searched Burt Caldwell + Missoula I got this post by Greg Strandberg (one of our four mayoral candidates) about some seemingly shady dealings involving Burt Caldwell and his daughter, Lauren Caldwell, regarding some subsidized housing.

The post is a great piece of research that exemplifies how the politically connected roll in towns like Missoula. A commenter even added this link (pdf) which further shows how Lauren Caldwell has benefited from housing programs.

Lauren Caldwell now works for the Montana Federation of Public Employees.

There is much more I’d like to include in this post, but I’ll have to leave it here for now.