Day: September 22, 2022

by Travis Mateer

If you are wondering why mentally ill homeless people don’t face the same kind of consequences for their criminal actions in Montana, you might want to listen to Matt Jennings, a Missoula County Attorney, because he has a scapegoat he would like to tell you about.

Here’s Jennings on KGVO helping out his boss, Kirsten Pabst, by telling the listening audience about those judges who don’t hold mentally ill homeless people accountable (emphasis mine):

If there is one topic that comes up more often than most when it comes to the criminal justice system, it is why the same names seem to be appearing in court accused of various crimes that are not being kept in jail.

We spoke to Missoula County Attorney’s Office Chief Deputy County Attorney Matt Jennings when he did the weekly crime report on Friday about why certain individuals are arrested and released rather than being incarcerated.

“I wish it was more unusual than it is,” began Jennings. “We have a lot of people in this community that commit crimes again and again and again. In fact, what we see is that there are really several hundred people in this community that are responsible for a vast majority of the crime. Most people are good and they’re going about their lives, being respectful of others, and not really breaking the law. However, we get the same people, and we call them frequent fliers or repeat offenders, and we do our best to make recommendations to the judges on what we think should be imposed as far as bail or conditions of release or whether they should be monitored. But ultimately, it’s always up to the judges on whether they hold somebody in jail or being released.”

Yep, it’s the judges fault, but simply blaming judges won’t make Jennings’ job any easier, so he continues providing excuses for mentally ill homeless people by reminding the audience they are HOMELESS and Montana just doesn’t have viable services to help them with their psychological struggles (emphasis mine):

Jennings proposed a possible solution to the problem of such repeat offenders, or ‘frequent fliers’.

“One of the things that we’re really lacking in our criminal justice system is sufficient help for people that are struggling with mental illnesses,” he said. “Right now, it’s basically jail or nothing because we often don’t have many opportunities to send somebody to (The Montana) State Hospital (in Warm Springs) for more than a day or two, and so we end up with a hole in our criminal justice system where some of the people that need help staying law abiding citizens don’t actually have services unless we put them in jail.”

Yep, Matt Jennings is absolutely correct that we, as a community, seriously lack adequate help for those struggling with mental illnesses, and it’s been that way for a VERY LONG TIME.

I am pretty knowledgeable about this issue, having worked at a homeless shelter in Missoula from 2008-2016, and I’ve been writing about Missoula’s LACK of services for those already here for a LONG time, like this post from February, 2016, titled Do Montana Kids Deserve A Soft Landing?

I wrote that post because Missoula do-gooders, like Mary Poole, are dangerously naive about local services, but that didn’t stop her from imposing her do-gooding dreams on this community, a dream that STILL requires media stories about needing MORE help for these traumatized people relocating to Missoula.

Just three days ago, for example, NBC Montana posted an article about many refugees dealing with trauma and the obstacles they are facing. From the link:

For refugees dealing with the effects of stress and adversity, resettlement agencies like the International Rescue Committee provide support.

“Some folks will come in and immediately request services, and some won’t need it for a few years until they feel fully safe, and their body has adjusted, and the trauma response has started to dissipate a little bit,” said Mackinley Gwinner, the mental health navigator for the IRC in Missoula, Montana.

Unlike Bahige’s adopted state of Wyoming, which has no refugee resettlement services, IRC Missoula has placed refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Ukraine in Montana in recent years. A major challenge in accessing mental health services in rural areas is that very few providers speak the languages of those countries.

When I read shit like this my blood boils because I’ve been raising the alarm FOR YEARS about this state’s lack of services, yet my warnings get ignored, and they get ignored while out-of-state political transplants like Danny Tenenbaum move here, get elected, then act HORRIFIED at the conditions inside the Warm Springs state hospital.

A Montana lawmaker shared his experience after an inside tour of the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs.

State Rep. Danny Tenenbaum (D-Missoula), along with others toured the Spratt Unit, where elderly patients with dementia and severe mental illness are housed.

Man, fuck this guy. And while I’m at it, fuck the Missoula County Attorney’s Office, fuck the Westridge Creative judges, fuck the Sheriff’s Office, and fuck ALL the political enablers LARPing like they give a shit while our societal fabric frays before our eyes in real time.

If something doesn’t change with the attitudes of our elected leaders, then I pray they get what they deserve from the cosmic forces of karma.

And if these gutless cowards find that statement threatening, remember, the chaplain for the Sheriff’s Office and head of the LifeGuard Group, Lowell Hochhalter gets to confess how he begs God to literally kill the people who make his life hard.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/749826840?h=5e5b96a580&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479

The chaplain for the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

I’m probably getting ahead of myself with this post because here I am talking about something MORE than just a road controversy before anyone even knows there’s a road controversy. So let’s back up and begin with what seems to be a fairly innocuous sounding question put forward by a public Facebook group. Here it is:

For a visual aid, the image below was provided along with the question above. The area within the dotted-line is where the Trinity Apartment Complex (TAC?) is now nearly finished being built.

Where’s the controversy? The hint that something controversial is brewing comes from a comment by “Smith Fam” which seems to come unsolicited to the conversation. Curious.

So the controversy about the road lane, according to this comment, is that it was removed as a part of the land transfer?

After giving up this lane, it appears that vehicular access will now be off Mullan, instead of Maple Street, so what’s the problem? I don’t think this is about a road, or lane, at all. Or even the land transfer.

Maybe “Smith Fam” is triggering the Streisand Effect. From the link:

The Streisand effect is a phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information, often via the Internet. It is named after American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt to suppress the California Coastal Records Project’s photograph of her cliff-top residence in Malibu, California, taken to document California coastal erosion, inadvertently drew greater attention to the photograph in 2003.[1]

Another comment, this one from Keith Koprivica, gives historical context that’s worth considering. Here’s the commented pasted in its entirety:

In the Nov. 5, 1996 general election, 65% of Missoula County voters authorized the Missoula County Board of Commissioners to issue general obligation bonds in the amount of $17.1 million for a very specific purpose: to acquire land for designing, constructing, installing, equipping and furnishing permanent adult and juvenile detention facilities, and to pay costs associated with the sale and issuance of the bonds.

The exact ballot language stated: “Shall the Board of County Commissioners (The Board) of Missoula County, Montana be authorized to sell general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed Seventeen Million One Hundred Thousand and NO/100 Dollars ($17,100,000) bearing interest at a rate to be determined by the Board of County Commissioners, payable semiannually, during a period of not more than 20 years, and redeemable on any interest payment date after one-half the term, for the purpose of acquiring land for designing, constructing, installing, equipping and furnishing permanent adult and juvenile detention facilities, and paying costs associated with the sale and issuance of the bonds?”

All three current Missoula County commissioners acknowledged reading this ballot language, yet Commissioners Dave Strohmaier, Josh Slotnick and Juanita Vero unanimously approved a resolution to donate a portion of the land acquired with that bond (4 acres) for the development of a low income and supportive housing project. 

With this action, the commissioners ignored the intent of Missoula County voters who overwhelmingly approved the land purchase for a different reason than what it is now being used for. Intent is not just a buzzword. Missoula County taxpayers bought this land for a specific public use. The commissioners should not have just given it away for a different use.

Ironically, just two days before approving the resolution for this donation, the commissioners approved an increase of 8% in property taxes for Missoula County for fiscal year 2020. 

When the commissioners determined that a portion of the land purchased by taxpayers is no longer needed for the purpose it was intended, that land should be sold, not donated. At the time of the donation, real estate professionals estimated the value of the 4 acres of land to be $2.5 million. The income from the sale of that land could have substantially reduced or even eliminated an increase in Missoula County property taxes in fiscal year 2020.

If this develops into an actual controversy, one of the questions that might help illuminate what’s going on is this: why now?

I’ll be curious to continue watching this develop. Thanks for reading!