by Travis Mateer
When it comes to empty reporting about what local government is doing with our tax money, no one is doing vacuous reporting like Martin “Gomer” Kidston.
For example, on November 10th, Kidston’s vacuous reporting was so starkly worthless I wrote an entire post about it, titled How To Write An Article With Little To No Quality Information In It.
Now, less than two weeks after that article, Gomer is back at it with a piece of writing about Missoula County spending money to get help writing a grant.
The private sector company getting paid to help the County do its grant-writing job is New Fields and the grant is an EPA Brownfields grant. But beyond that, don’t expect much more information than that about what this grant will be used for. From the link (emphasis mine):
With a hope of landing a large federal grant to evaluate and clean former industrial land for potential redevelopment, Missoula County on Tuesday agreed to secure a professional firm to prepare the application.
Commissioners approved an agreement with NewFields for $6,000, hoping its professional grant-writing skills will make the county more competitive as it seeks a $500,000 Brownfield Assessment Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
So, the grant will be used to clean industrial land for redevelopment. A natural question readers may have is WHAT land will benefit from this grant if the County is successful? Sadly, Gomer Kidston can’t be bothered to report on stuff like that because doing ACTUAL REPORTING might make his Democrat pals who run this town upset with him.
Later in the article, the intent of the funds is restated again, but in that signature Kidston style that betrays NO SPECIFICS. If vacuous reporting was a competitive sport, I’d put my money on Gomer Kidston winning every time.
The county is seeking Brownfields funding to “evaluate and clean up reusable land, protect its natural resources and environment, and combat a housing shortage.” Missoula has used such grants before to mitigate contaminated land and restore it to a usable condition ahead of redevelopment.
“It’s a small investment for a potentially big return on investment,” Commissioner Dave Strohmaier said of the $6,000 contract.
Cool, Commissioner Dave is claiming the “potential” of a big return on this small investment, and I’m sure I’m just being nit-picky for wanting to know WHERE this money will be used for redevelopment.
Since this is the week to gratitude-signal, maybe I should be thankful for Gomer Kidston’s conspicuous role in controlling the narrative for the woke fascists and their cabal of public/private enablers.
If you are thankful for MY content, posted at this site at least six times a week, check out ways to support my work at my about page.
Thanks for reading!
JC
Travis Mateer
Perfect City/County Government think…”we are going to spend your tax dollars to try to get more of your tax dollars from a different account. We dont really know how we are going to spend that money yet but dont worry its all free money anyway to us”.
Kidston could have simply entered the terms – Missoula County Brownfields — into the google and come up with the following:
I’d assume the money is going to be used to bolster the county’s efforts in these directions, and not anything specific. But with the big investigation into Smurfit’s contamination (another slightly less vacuous Kidston article explains this), the lion’s share might be dedicated to assessments there. I think Newfield’s part in the whole thing is they’re getting paid the $6k, and if they win the grant for the County, they’ll probably get rewarded with some contracts to do the assessments, as that is what they do — along with remedial work.
There are still plenty of industrial hazards in the county that need serious remedial work to keep toxic chemicals like dioxins out of our well water, prevent poisoning fish and whatever consumes them, and keep wind blown soils — like from Smurfit downwind into the newly developing Mullan areas — from seriously affecting us.
While Brownfields spending may be government spending, without it we’d all be exposed to highly toxic chemicals that private companies have abandoned and refused to clean up — the so called “externalities” of unfettered and poorly regulated capitalist industries.
But yeah, Kidston sucks. And with the further destruction of the Missoulian imminent, the feeding frenzy in the valley is just beginning, with little to illuminate it.
Ha ha ha!! Brownfield cleanup spending is good, $6K for the grant-writing sounds like a very good deal; but good grief, that is indeed a next-to-worthless story, all right. It is so far below the basic precepts of elementary introductory journalism (“the 5 W’s”) that one can only shake one’s head.