Month: January 2023

by Travis Mateer

I got curious about the Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation after seeing this Facebook page (that hides its followers) downplay negative social media responses to the Higgins corridor redesign project. Social media is NOT representative of public sentiment, the person commenting as MIST declared. Who is this person? Is it the guy who panhandled Missoula for a better speaker system last year?

The reason I think MIST is the Executive Director of Free Cycles is because the two organizations share the same address and phone number, so duh. I guess the person running the MIST Facebook page COULD be a staff member of Free Cycles, or a volunteer, or an intern, since the organization employs/solicits all three. And now they can ROCK OUT with a better sound system, thanks to the generosity of local businesses, like Flippers.

Free Cycles should ALSO be appreciative of Missoula County for forgiving its debt, since living in a Fantasy Land can be like playing Monopoly when you land on the COMMUNITY CHEST. From the link (emphasis mine):

Missoula County forgave nearly $150,000 in loan debt owed by two nonprofits on Tuesday, saying they provided a community benefit.

Free Cycles saw more than $87,000 in debt forgiven while Homeword had roughly $62,000 in debt forgiven. Both loans were provided by the county years ago through its Community Development Block Grant revolving loan fund.

Before continuing, I should explain that I’m not totally against creating fantasy lands where the joys of multi-modal forms of transportation, like passenger trains, can be experienced. For example, here is an aerial picture of MY train station where the back of the structure is being set up for a concentration-camp-styled holding facility for political dissidents who ignored the writing on the wall, so to speak.

While my vision is clearly a nightmare scenario that would NEVER HAPPEN HERE, the vision of MIST, as it relates to passenger rail, is quite different. From the link:

One of the more exciting transportation projects brewing and simmering in the Missoula area is the return of commuter rail- right through our downtown. Imagine being able to walk or bike to the Depo at the end of Higgins, catch a train to Seattle, catch up on some sleep or reading on the way west, and then return to Missoula; all without the hassle or carbon footprint of flying or driving. The north end of Higgins offers an opportunity to focus the concentration of transportation services on one location. Examples include a bike share, a bus stop, taxi drop-off, and ride share. A train hub can be an excellent catalyst.

Here is where some of my multi-modal disdain is coming from: I believe the Higgins lane-reduction scheme is a foregone conclusion because there are light-rail plans that connect to the passenger rail vision that recently brought a Ukrainian train operator, virtually of course, to a train-pushing summit in Billings. I am skeptical of these plans because I believe they are part of a much larger transformation happening that will REDUCE the freedom of individual mobility afforded by vehicular transportation.

I know many multi-modal supporters are good people with sincere beliefs. But some can be a little condescending in how they think about public sentiment, like John Wolverton, a multi-modal man who once belonged to BWAM! (Bike Walk Alliance for Missoula). Here’s some commentary and you can decide for yourself on the quality of the insights from this bicycling advocate:

Now, as exciting as John Wolverton’s use of language like EMPIRICAL GAUGE might be, it’s not all that difficult to find smart sounding language that SUPPORTS the use of social media in determining public opinion. From the smart-sounding link:

Social media platforms provide a new way of representing and measuring public opinions. There has been a significant increase in the adoption and use of social media by both the general public and particular subpopulations, such as government sectors, enterprises, and celebrities [14]. In past decades, social media-based public opinion (SMPO) analysis has been conducted in various fields, including social science [15], politics [16], education [17], medical science [18,19], marketing [20], transportation [21], finance [22], knowledge sharing [23], and disaster management [24,25], showing high interest and considerable effectiveness. A specific form in which users both access and share opinions and perceptions is showing a greater transition in social media platforms than perhaps at any previous point in history. A huge amount of opinion data is freely available to researchers, and it shows a more comprehensive picture with higher cost efficiency. Using social media as a data source for public opinion collection can subvert some of the underlying methodological limitations of traditional surveys [10,26]. For example, representative sampling [27,28], the hierarchical nature of opinion formation [5], and difficulties in obtaining time-series data [29] can be eliminated by using social media. Anstead and O’Loughlin [16] suggested that a public and collective stage has been formed in social media mainly because of its conversational nature. McGregor [5] found that social media offers a more temporal-sensitive channel for obtaining and gauging public sentiment toward particular policies and events as the opinions posted when a policy is released and an event occurs are recorded on platforms and cannot be changed. Salleh [30] suggested that social media can not only show a better understanding of public perception in a more scientific manner but can also be helpful in forecasting future political trends and shaping society’s worldview. These advantages motivate scholars to use social media as a data source instead of survey polls.

Now that we’ve given the methods of determining public opinion some thought, let’s take a look at an anecdotal opinion from a downtown business owner. I wonder, how should one consider the qualitative nature of gauging political retaliation for speaking out publicly on local issues? Because, and I know this from personal experience, there can be fallout from saying critical stuff, like this:

Particularly unhappy are a cross-section of business owners with properties on the popular through-way that cuts through downtown Missoula. While most of the public polled by the team working on the corridor expressed more support for the project than opposition, at a rate of about 2-1, business owners were pretty equally divided between those that support the redesign and those against it.

Scott Billadeau, co-owner of Pangea and Liquid Planet, spoke Wednesday on behalf of the businesspeople who don’t support the project. He railed against the process used to make decisions about the roadway, taking special exception to the recent outreach performed within the business community.

“Now at the very end of the process they’re finally coming to us who actually live and work on Higgins,” Billadeau said. “That is really upsetting. It’s really infuriating actually.”

Another Higgins business owner, however, cast a different opinion of the proposed changes.

“There is wide support for this,” Alex Gallego maintained. “Once these things are in place, the business community is going to thrive and it’s going to be more attractive, more people are going to want to visit this area.”

So, just a few NIMBY naysayers going NAH NAH NAH to the change that they will supposedly, one day, financially benefit from? Or is this sentiment a reflection of a more wide-spread discontent over the methods being used for engaging and gauging the public appetite for this particular change along Higgins, and the larger changes coming this project portends?

I’ll keep asking these questions and you can help by making a financial donation to my about page.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

The parable of the frog and the scorpion came to mind when I read that the recently disbanded unit within the Memphis police department responsible for the killing of Tyre Nichols was called THE SCORPION UNIT. If you’re not familiar with the parable, here is the synopsis from Wikipedia:

A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: “I am sorry, but I couldn’t resist the urge. It’s in my nature.”

Despite the name of the unit, I don’t think this parable applies to the five black cops who beat Tyre Nichols to death on the streets of Memphis. In my opinion we are NOT dealing with the violent NATURE of law enforcement officers here, we are dealing with the NURTURE factor of training and culture that these men absorbed long before what happened to Tyre Nichols.

If we’re to entertain the framing of RACIST black cops killing a black man, then it might be helpful to examine what kind of training Memphis cops receive.

In this opinion piece by Van Jones, he says shit like this about why these black cops might be racist:

Black cops are often socialized in police departments that view certain neighborhoods as war zones. In those departments, few officers get disciplined for dishing out “street justice” in certain precincts — often populated by Black, brown or low-income people — where there is a tacit understanding that the “rulebook” simply doesn’t apply. 

Cops of all colors, including Black police officers, internalize those messages — and sometimes act on them. In fact, in Black neighborhoods, the phenomenon of brutal Black cops singling out young Black men for abuse is nothing new.

While Van Jones explains why he likes being in the house and not the field, I wanted to know where these possibly racist black police officers developed their STING approach to policing. Could it be Israel?

The Police Department of Memphis, Tennessee, is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. Larry Goldwin served as Director of the Memphis Police Department between 2004 and 2011. Larry Godwin then served as Deputy Commissioner at the State of Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security between 2011 and 2016. Larry Goldwin attended a training in Israel as a delegate of the Homeland Security International Conference in 2010. Larry Godwin is credited with instituting the “Blue CRUSH” predictive policing system at the Memphis Police Department which targets high-crime “hotspots” resulting in increased policing of low-income communities of color.

How police officers are trained is a BIG indicator of how they are going to behave on the streets. You can either go the Crisis Intervention Training route, or you can try other things, like promoting the KILLOLOGY of David Grossman, like Missoula did for awhile until they were found out last February by local media. From the link:

Missoula approved payment of almost $8,000 at Monday night’s city council meeting for two recent police training sessions with a company mired in controversy surrounding comments made by its director, former Army Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.

In a video that surfaced online last year of a presentation by Killology Research Group in 2015, Grossman, head of the group, implies that sexual pleasure of police officers is amplified following a violent confrontation with a suspect.

“Cop says knock down, drag out fight, cuff them, stuff them, finally get home at the end of the shift and cop says, ‘gunfight, bad guys down, I’m alive.’ Finally get home at the end of the incident and they all say the best sex I’ve had in months,” Grossman says in the video.

Yes, the aptly named GROSSman got actual tax dollars to promote his KILL AND FUCK approach to alpha-policing. Do you see any potential problems with this approach?

If you do, and you appreciate MY approach to content creation on aspects of controversial topics you won’t read anywhere else, then please consider making a donation at my about page. Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

On this installment of Zoom Chron’s Week in Review we talk about development in Midtown, rabies in Superior, and heartless homeless bashers in the Flathead. Regarding the Flathead Commissioners letter, Missoula’s placeholder Mayor, Jordan Hess, went to the media to REAFFIRM our city’s care for the homeless. From the link:

“We hear a lot from our constituents that they really care about serving our homeless population. We react to the people we serve, and in Missoula, our constituents really care about providing services to those in need,” said Hess.

Hess spoke out against a controversial letter from the Flathead County Commission earlier this week.

The commission claimed services for the homeless are only attracting more homeless individuals to Kalispell and called for the community to reject all things that empower the homeless lifestyle.

While Hess did his virtue signaling, a homeless man was charged with felony assault with a weapon for putting a knife to the throat of a fellow homeless man at the Johnson Street Shelter. Here’s a picture of Sean Ross, who was born in Michigan and had an assault with a weapons charge last year in Lewis and Clark County.

Here’s the other charge, from Conweb:

And here’s the story about how Ross came to the shelter, checked in his 10 inch knife, hung out for an hour, then committed a felony, allegedly. From the link:

An officer spoke to multiple witnesses involved. One witness said the suspect male, later identified as Sean Ross, came into the shelter with a blade. The witness told Ross that he needed to check the blade. Ross checked the weapon, hung out for about an hour, and then came back and got his knife. Ross then went out to the courtyard where the assault allegedly occurred.

One victim, John Doe, was interviewed and his first statement was “He tried to kill me literally” and “he put it to my throat and everything.” Doe explained that Ross came right up to him with the knife, put it to his throat and said, “I’ll kill you.” Doe further reported that he had to defend himself to keep from being stabbed. Doe also said he was “scared for my life.” Two other witnesses corroborated Doe’s explanation of what occurred.

If Missoulians REALLY DO CARE about serving people without conventional places to live, maybe we should ask ourselves about the rampant violence happening in and around these CARING facilities were different forms of assistance enabling are being dispersed.

Regarding the rabies claims in Superior, Montana (Mineral County), there’s A LOT more than just speculation about whether or not David Barsotti has rabies. Friday also featured a status hearing on the Writ of Mandamus, which I attended. After the hearing, I had a very interesting confrontation with Deputy County Attorney, Wally Congdon.

Did I confirm whether or not Wally once fell off a horse and hit his head? You’ll just have to listen to the WEEK IN REVIEW to find out, but if you want to read some hilarious Congdon context, check out this post, titled A Field Of Schemes In Wally World.

And then there’s the Midtown meeting I attended on Wednesday, where the application of the Delphi method was on full display. For a quick history, here’s Wikipedia:

The name Delphi derives from the Oracle of Delphi, although the authors of the method were unhappy with the oracular connotation of the name, “smacking a little of the occult”.[12] The Delphi method assumes that group judgments are more valid than individual judgments.

The Delphi method was developed at the beginning of the Cold War to forecast the impact of technology on warfare.[13] In 1944, General Henry H. Arnold ordered the creation of the report for the U.S. Army Air Corps on the future technological capabilities that might be used by the military.

Different approaches were tried, but the shortcomings of traditional forecasting methods, such as theoretical approach, quantitative models or trend extrapolation, quickly became apparent in areas where precise scientific laws have not been established yet. To combat these shortcomings, the Delphi method was developed by Project RAND during the 1950-1960s (1959) by Olaf Helmer, Norman Dalkey, and Nicholas Rescher.[14] It has been used ever since, together with various modifications and reformulations, such as the Imen-Delphi procedure.[15]

This history is fascinating, and the technique itself is something discussed in more detail during the episode, so give it a listen! And if you appreciate that content, in addition to the Monday through Friday blog posts, then consider making a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading/listening!

by Travis Mateer

In a normal world governed by normal people following normal procedures, a breeder of Malinois dogs in western Montana would probably report a dog bite and case of rabies to the local Health Department. But this, dear readers, is NOT a normal world we inhabit, and David Barsotti is NOT a normal dog breeder.

This picture above is a screenshot I took from a Facebook page for Northwestern Malinois. Does it look like David Barsotti? While I don’t see that signature eye-patch, I do see some tattoos and ginger face-stubble that appears quite similar to the face-stubble I saw on the face of the man standing trial for the domestic abuse charges he received just months before his wife went missing in July of 2021.

Here’s another screenshot indicating this dog thing is some sort of business and not just a lonely man breeding four-legged friends to keep him company on those cold, western Montana nights in January.

If this is an active business, I’d expect to find something at the Secretary of State’s website, but nothing came up under different combinations of Northwestern Malinois. And that’s too bad, because I’m VERY worried about this comment, which I took a screenshot of before it disappears:

If David Barsotti’s “pillow buddy” did indeed have rabies, and wasn’t just impolitely refusing some kind of after-hours advances by his breeder, I would think the person I spoke with at the Health Department in Mineral County would have told me SOMETHING but, alas, I was told VERY LITTLE about any rabies cases or investigations.

Since local media WOULD be used, were such a risk to the community being investigated, I texted Monte Turner, but his response indicated he knew nothing about any rabies cases and/or pillow buddies having to be put down. Same for the MISSOULA County Health Department. My conclusion from this quick investigation? The claim appears to be bullshit.

Now, this might seem kind of funny, but let me remind readers Rebekah Barsotti is NO LONGER ALIVE while the entire County west of Missoula is under a Writ of Mandamus for failing to enforce laws to keep its citizens safe.

In this kind of lawless environment, I imagine anything that keeps you safe would be the object of veneration. Some men sleep with their guns. David Barsotti sleeps with his dogs. Think I’m unnecessarily playing this up? Here’s another screenshot I’m going to file under YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!

Maybe this is all just a clever ploy to get a response from those watching this person, a response to things concerning DOGS and NOT things concerning what happened on January 6th, 2023, when a Mineral County Sheriff Deputy allegedly visited David Barsotti’s home. If this law enforcement contact happened, I wonder why? Maybe they just wanted to pay their respects to where David buries his pillow buddies. I think it’s an oak tree. Hmmm.

Anyway, if you appreciate this content, please consider making a financial donation at my about page. And stay tuned for the WEEK IN REVIEW podcast episode, coming Sunday. This week should be a fun one to discuss.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

A few days ago the Missoulian reported on the Northside pedestrian bridge that spans the train tracks, connecting Northsiders with downtown, because the damage that closed this 23 year old structure indefinitely is worse than originally thought. From the link:

The latest update on the Northside pedestrian bridge revealed the structure has suffered damage from salt that will necessitate significant improvements in the coming months.

The masonry block that makes up much of the bridge will need to be repaired, according to David Selvage, Missoula Parks services and systems superintendent.

Although a total overhaul won’t be necessary, Selvage said the masonry block makes up “a good chunk of the structure.”

While city workers were compromising the structural integrity of this bridge with salt, the consultants at ECONorthwest were busy VISIONING how to apply your tax money to create MORE opportunities to spend your tax money…in Midtown!

Did you know there are SERIOUS problems in Midtown that ONLY your tax dollars can help fix, problems like giant parking lots that inhibit the flow of MULTI-MODAL transportation? Here’s a quote from the link that I’ll add some emphasis to so you know where this is going:

Words like disconnected, disjointed, massive parking lots and no sense of place have been used to describe Missoula’s Midtown district in a planning effort that began late last year. But a new vision is beginning to take shape, one that would create a sense of place in the end.

Designers with ECONorthwest – a consultant hired by the city to create a Midtown Master Plan – are set to begin work on a final draft later this year, setting a vision for the poorly planned and car-dependent district.

Through online surveys and public engagement, they’ve already identified a number of challenges and opportunities including better use of what’s now an ocean of parking lots, a lack of connectivity, a tight retail and housing market, few transportation options, and barriers around new development.

The first point of emphasis is that this district is being defined as “car-dependent”. This is a HUGE red-flag for the long-range plan to eliminate the freedom of cars from the American experience. The second point of emphasis is the supposed tight retail market being associated with a tight housing market. This correlation is meant to explain why so many businesses are struggling to find workers, but is it JUST BECAUSE housing is tight that workers are hard for employers to find? Or might something else be going on?

Before getting to the lack of workers, I want to include a quote from a book I’ve been listening to Monica Perez riff on in her recent Deep Dives. The book is by Rosa Koire, and it’s titled Behind The Green Mask. Here’s the quote using San Francisco as the example:

The Green Mask is that you’ll have cleaner air, less pollution, more time for your families, green jobs, lower costs, and a better, more vibrantly walkable, bikeable life. The goal is to homogenize the Bay Area and the nation with ‘Smart Growth’–housing and retail developments subsidized by your property and transportation tax dollars. The idea is that when everyone is living on the tracks or on a bus line it will be more cost-effective to run that transit. There will be fewer places to go and more people to ride it. There will be less pollution because no one will have a car. Rents will be cheap because the units are small. Small units mean low energy use. You don’t have a yard so you won’t waste water on plants. It will never rain or snow no matter where you live, so everyone can ride their bike everywhere. Everyone will be happy, kids will be safe, there will be lots of time to drink coffee in the downstairs coffee shop, and there won’t be any crime because everyone is watching everyone else. All the time.

Yep, Rosa Koire’s book is a great resource, just one of many in the gentrification section of my personal library. Now, on to the “tight retail” claim and a local example I noticed yesterday on the Hip Strip.

This prime location just south of downtown Missoula has sat empty for over a year. The supposed weed shop that displaced a fantastic bead store never officially opened. Why? When I spoke with the owner months ago, he said they couldn’t find anyone to work the store. Now a FOR RENT sign has finally gone up.

What’s going on here? Maybe this piece from the Brownstone Institute is worth considering. From the link (emphasis mine):

In a November 30, 2022, speech on “Inflation and the Labor Market,” Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell blamed most of the 3.5 million estimated shortfall in the US labor force on premature retirements. He also blamed a large portion – between 280,000 and 680,000 – on “long Covid.” In a footnote, however, Powell acknowledged a far more somber factor: an estimated 400,000 unexpected deaths among working age people.

It’s easy to blame these deaths on Covid-19. The virus is of course one significant cause. But it’s not nearly the only cause, especially among young and middle-age workers. We need better government data transparency to make a full assessment. Until then, we can proceed with others who track mortality for a living – life insurance companies.

Maybe some day the reality of what’s happening can be acknowledged. Until then, it’s full steam ahead with the transformation of Midtown!

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Thanks for reading!