Month: May 2022

by Travis Mateer

My gut answer to the question proposed in the title of this post: fuck yeah she is. But why? Because that number is a giant municipal crack pipe being formalized in the minds of insane people who can’t fathom the fact words like NO exist in the English language. From the link:

Calling it a door to the community, the Missoula City Council on Monday made official its adoption of a conceptual plan for a $44 million indoor recreation center proposed for McCormick Park.

With a design in hand, backers of the project can now begin their search for funding and hope philanthropy will cover the cost. Accepting the plan doesn’t commit the city to any funding at this point in time, according to city staff.

Before piling on more impotent citizen rage on this “conceptual” plan, I’d like to remind readers that County officials recently issued an emergency order to deal with the Reserve Street homeless camp environmental disaster and, because of that latent official action, 40 tons were removed.

I’m referencing that effort because I think a similar emergency order via citizen initiative needs to be launched to deal with the analogous GARBAGE coming from the unhinged minds of city officials like Donna the financial terrorist.

My favorite part of this absurd DOOR TO THE COMMUNITY concept to blow 44 million dollars is Donna Gaukler’s acknowledgement the economy is shit. That’s why this isn’t a request for “funds”, she says. What else does Donna have to say about her vision?

“We recognize that today’s economy is not the time to ask for funds,” said Donna Gaukler, director of Parks and Recreation. “We’re not asking for funds, were not asking for construction or operational funds. But there’s opportunity for a vision and there’s opportunity for philanthropy. This is a time to build coalitions.”

Yes, so much opportunity. And if you don’t support this clear opportunity to realize Donna’s vision, here’s some more gobbledygook rationale for why the Missoula community needs this bullshit:

“This plan is unique in two ways. One, the community outreach well exceeds that which has occurred in the past,” said Mike Sweet with Friends of the Currents Center for Recreation and Creativity. “Secondly, while this design captures all the components of the previous efforts, it more completely represents the diversity and interests of the community and reflects how our community is growing.”

While I certainly don’t contest the fact our community is growing, the growth I’m interested in with this post is the growth of scope and cost of this madness. Here’s how this project was being pitched in February of 2021 (emphasis mine):

On Wednesday, the Missoula City Council’s parks and conservation committee approved spending $119,888 to hire MMW Architects for design services for a community center in McCormick Park. The money comes from impact fees.

Donna Gaukler, the director of the City of Missoula’s Parks and Recreation department, acknowledged that there is no funding source identified to build the facility, which she said might have a rough ballpark price tag of $17 million, although construction costs are always variable.

However, it’s important to get the ball rolling so that community partners can have a vision of what the space would be and how it would benefit the community, she said.

Who really thinks this town needs what Donna Gaukler is selling? And, more importantly, can a citizen initiative stop this financial terrorism before it’s too late?

I sure hope so. Thanks for reading.

by Travis Mateer

In the hypothetical “reporting” style of Gomer Kidston, I’m alerting readers to the possibility that the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department COULD be trying to prove this world is a cartoon clown world.

How else am I supposed to understand this tweet?

The fact the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department is trying to “find” something, combined with the adorable sensitivity to a wooden nipple, indicates (at least to me) the possibility that proving the world is a cartoon is what they’re trying to do.

Or maybe I’m wrong.

In other cartoon clown news, KGVO is reporting that Nick Checota’s Top Hat (where the music stopped playing) will be going green and selling food to the captured audience feeding that OTHER Checota business.

From the link:

It seems like everything is starting to line up for the 2022 summer concert season at KettleHouse Amphitheater! We find ourselves in a better spot with COVID than we’ve been in the last two years and the weather looks like it wants to start cooperating and providing some warmer temperatures. And don’t forget, we also filled in the details on one of the most important aspects of a concert night – the food that will be served as part of the Top Hat menu at the concession stands! I would say we’re definitely ready for a few months of live outdoor music! As we get ready for the first KettleHouse show on May 24, Logjam Presents is reminding us all about how to be a sustainable concertgoer and help good ol’ Mother Earth as we have our fair share of fun.

Isn’t this a wonderful FREE ad for TWO of Nick Checota’s businesses? Must be nice to have your ass saved by Covid money. How much did that lawyer say (who emailed me because his client is suing Nick) he found out Checota got in loot? Over six million, I think.

Yes, I think there definitely COULD be an effort afoot to prove this world is a flipping cartoon. And local media is helping prop it up.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

A recent article by Martin “Gomer” Kidston focuses on something that COULD happen. Here is the opening paragraph (emphasis mine):

With the new Missoula Public Library now fully open, the city could turn its focus toward redeveloping the old library block, which it received as a gift from a local philanthropist before the pandemic hit.

Why is Gomer reporting on something that COULD happen? Is this “article” an attempt to help developers metaphorically prepare the ground for a project they are anticipating public pushback over?

While I don’t know the answers to those questions, the use of the word “could” is very curious to me. Gomer even uses it in the next paragraph to describe this non-story story:

While details are sparse and the city hasn’t released any information about its plans for the property, it could begin to explore its options this summer, marking headway in a project that’s been discussed now for several years.

So, nothing about this project is actually happening, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping Gomer from anticipating something happening. Amazing.

And remember, this is the “reporter” who COULD NOT find the space on his digital rag to report on the black man who was shot twice in the back by a Missoula County Sheriff Deputy.

No, it’s more important to provide space for the director of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, Ellen Buchanan, to discuss her metaphorical burners and how this project COULD move to her front one.

“We’ve been talking internally about pulling that up on the front burner,” said Ellen Buchanan, director of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency. “I’m not sure how we’re going to manage that, capacity wise, but we need to start that process.”

Yes, that’s right, a process that hasn’t even started yet is being reported on by Gomer like it’s news. But it’s not news, it’s development propaganda, and no one is better at peddling development propaganda like Missoula’s Martin “Gomer” Kidston.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned. This week is gonna be a big one.

by Travis Mateer

I am writing this post in a hotel room in the town where I actually live because life is strange and synchronicities now govern my days, since I have come to see them as a sort of language God uses to speak to us with.

Two people growing apart is such a fucking cliché, yet here I am in a process of separating my path from someone I’ve been walking with since we were both 19. Maybe we could have limped along for another decade, or even two, but the fissures we tried to triage during the madness of the last two years finally got too wide to ignore, or fix.

The only fix now is to find a way to be civil adults while co-parenting our kids in a world slowly grooming them to be feasted on by monsters and predators.

You might be wondering why I’m sharing all this. I’m kind of wondering that too. It might have something to do with risk habituation, or, in layman’s terms, my strained ability to assess the risks I’m facing from the work I’m doing because I’ve been navigating some pretty insane shit for quite some time, and kinda gotten used to it.

One thing I DO NOT intend with this piece of writing is to exacerbate the grief my partner is experiencing over the realization her life partner hid important decisions and is now taking actual risks to expose what’s happening in our community.

I hope my family understands some day what this whole thing is about. I hope they see the purpose behind the sacrifices. And the love.

I don’t know how to properly explain it, but I think the very atoms of the universe are reordering toward a divine disclosure of purpose. The frenzy of evil shit being unleashed right now, and the targeting of those waking up to higher-level operations of spirit, is very real and shouldn’t be dismissed.

The hotel that gave me temporary reprieve had a conference going on this weekend, and I attended the tail-end of a presentation that put historical discord into the fascinating, big picture context of God’s divine plan. This perspective is one I’m returning to in some interesting ways, but with an occult-aware lens of what’s being accomplished in the spiritual realm, along with a new appreciation of the gifts we are given to stand against the influences that put our souls at risk.

If that sounds hyperbolically unhinged, a few days walking in my shoes through the David Lynch movie unfolding in Zoom Town would probably alter your perceptions toward ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?, which is a common refrain I now mutter on a nearly hourly basis as new components of fuckery emerge.

I have to wrap this post up because I can feel my tendency at over-sharing kicking in to higher gears of disclosure, and right now that’s not a safe thing for me to do. What I have chosen to share today, publicly, is not easy, but it’s important to me to communicate as honestly and directly as possible because the wolves are circling and they will use ANYTHING to protect themselves.

Thanks for reading.

by Travis Mateer

When I read that Missoula’s 10 year plan to end homelessness would get some analysis from an outside firm, I had to laugh. What kind of damage control plan is being cooked up to focus attention AWAY from the enriching schemes of our local cabal?

Before I take a look at the innocuous sounding JG Research & Evaluation firm located in Bozeman, I have to give some space to Martin “Gomer” Kidston’s helpful depiction of this 10 year plan. Because it’s funny (emphasis mine).

While the plan’s title has been maligned over the past decade for its lofty pledge of ending homelessness, the work has born successes and changed how the city and its partners approach the issue.

Now, the city wants to take stock in that work and identify the path forward.

“We’re doing a retrospective evaluation,” said project director Brandn Green with JG Research. “We want to understand the drivers of success and any of the barriers related to the goals of the 2012 plan. We want to be efficient and not reproduce things that are already done or already known.”

What Gomer leaves out is WHO maligned the plan’s title because he wants readers to imagine it was just the haters when, in reality, the first sucker hired to implement this plan–former Missoulian reporter, Michael Moore–often mocked the “lofty pledge” he was getting paid to make a reality.

Anyway, I’ve written plenty about this plan over the years from my unique perspective of having been actually quoted in its pages due to my work as a homeless service provider from 2008-2016, but today’s post is going to take a quick look at JG Research & Evaluation.

After poking around I think the most interesting thing about JG Research is its staff and the focus they are bringing, like co-owner and principal researcher, Brandn Green (that’s not a misspelling).

Here’s a little background info on Brandn:

Brandn’s integration of rural sociology with social epidemiology began in his first professional appointment at Bucknell University, where he directed a program focused on the social dimensions of the environment. As a Service Fellow in the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, he continued with this transition while working on an interdisciplinary research team. After working for SAMHSA, he moved to Montana to lead the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for the State of Montana. Leaving the state to work for the DC-based contracting firm, Development Services Group while continuing to live in Montana.

Another person at JG Research with an interesting pedigree is Frances Kim, a Research Manager. Here’s a little on Kim’s background (emphasis mine):

Frances is still early in her career, but has worked in various capacities with a major focus on equity in everything she does. While in graduate school at Columbia University, she conducted her thesis project with a New York-based infectious disease research center studying global trends in coronavirus discovery. After graduating with her MPH in epidemiology and applied biostatistics in May 2017, she moved to Bozeman and worked with a community-based participatory research center as a research project manager. There, she worked on various public health projects in partnership with different tribes across the state of Montana. She has also founded an organization nonprofit to equity in the outdoors and worked at a MT state-wide nonprofit mental health agency.

I don’t know why, but for some reason “studying global trends in coronavirus discovery” jumps out at me.

When Frances Kim isn’t studying global trends in coronavirus discovery, she’s advocating to see black people in the wild places of Montana. Or disabled people. Or really anyone who can make a beautiful diversity rainbow.

I’m not sure if Kim’s efforts include teaching young black men to avoid combining meth and machetes when recreating in the woodland/urban interface of Montana’s rural splendor, but here’s a little taste of her outdoor diversity schtick from a March, 2019 op-ed in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, titled Conservation community has a diversity problem:

Earthtone Outside MT formed out of a love for Montana’s beautiful landscapes and the desire to elevate the visibility of people of color in the outdoors by promoting historically marginalized populations to have more equitable access to the outdoors. We are entirely organized and led by people of color with intersecting identities and varying backgrounds, abilities, experiences. I, along with the coordinators of Earthtone Outside MT, all based in Bozeman, have been working hard to develop a community for people of color to tackle issues of representation in our beautiful public spaces and #DiversifyBigSky. However, the outdoor industry and conservation community has a history of exclusivity and erasure by promoting and privileging certain identities over others and it disheartens us to see this happen within the community we love and reside in. People of color are too often overlooked and driven away as a result and this needs to change.

After reading this woke trash, I wonder how much cognitive dissonance Frances Kim experiences when confronted with the reality this guy is her boss at JG Research:

I also hope Frances Kim, or ANYONE working at JG Research, don’t feel any misgivings about having clients like USAID and Oxfam.

Here’s a screenshot of the client page:

And here’s what some Oxfam staff were getting into after the Haitian earthquake:

Oxfam has been severely criticised by the Charity Commission for the way it dealt with claims of serious sexual misconduct by its staff in Haiti.

The commission said there was a “culture of poor behaviour” at the charity, and issued it with an official warning over its “mismanagement”.

Last year Oxfam was accused of covering up claims staff sexually exploited victims of the 2010 earthquake.

Oxfam accepted the findings, saying what happened in Haiti was “shameful”.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but my confidence level is pretty high right now.

Actually, no, after doing some research and evaluation, I have discovered my confidence level is just stoned on Cannabis.

Is it the weekend yet?