Month: February 2023

by Travis Mateer

It wasn’t easy sitting in the City Council chambers during the Public Works Committee discussion on Wednesday. Why? Because our elected leaders can’t hide their disdain for the public when the public shows up to criticize things, like the lane-reduction scheme that has already been effectively decided. And it shows.

One of the main, and confusing, points of contention is HOW LONG this plan has been known, and to whom. Has it been cooking for years in different committees, or is it a more recent push by the multi-modal zealots (MMZ) at the city-level? This matters to skeptical members of the public who have the impression the MMZs pulled a fast one on the Montana Department of Transportation, the entity responsible for the design and build of the FOUR lane Beartracks Bridge.

Leading the opposition to this lane reduction scheme is Scott Billadeau, co-owner of Liquid Planet and Pangea, a restaurant located on Higgins, north of the bridge. Here is how the Missoulian framed his opposition while lumping in people like ME, who also provided public comment. From the link (emphasis mine):

Scott Billadeau, co-owner of Pangea and Liquid Planet, said the Higgins conversion could potentially create “one of the worst mistakes in the entire history of Missoula.”

Billadeau and his ilk railed against the public engagement process, the congestion the conversion could engender, the parking reduction and other issues with the proposal. City staff noted they have received more feedback than usual on this particular project.

Did the reporter, Bret Anne Serbin, attempt to speak with me about my opposition, or use any direct quote from my public comment? Nope, because I’m apparently just a part of Billadeau’s ILK and not worthy of further engagement.

The point I started with (before the volume of my voice made some on Council uncomfortable) was that I sympathized with the defensiveness toward the framing of this local conflict as CAR vs. BIKE, so I offered an alternative framing to better describe where the tension seems to exist: PEOPLE vs. INFRASTRUCTURE/RULE-ENFORCEMENT

The smart, highly educated traffic engineers–who some on Council felt the need to prop up as if their hearts had been broken by the criticism–don’t seem to understand why the public skepticism is so deep-seated, so my hope was to explain that PEOPLE don’t always use infrastructure as intended, and the systemic problems with the criminal justice system means enforcement of ANY rule is pretty much a joke these days.

I got frustrated and had to cut my unscripted comment short, so I wasn’t able to connect the “messy human” problem to the recent local drama of chaos taking hold thanks to municipal snow-removal requirements. I think pre-writing my next public comment might help clarify some points I was trying to make. Not for Council, since it’s clear what the majority of THEM feel about public criticism of their plans, but for the public, who DO suffer from a lack of quality, critical local news coverage.

And why is that? Why did the Missoula Independent get shuttered on September 11th, 2018?

This harsh move against an effective platform of critical journalism was enabled by Matt Gibson. What’s Matt up to these days? I don’t know, I’m more interested in what his partner is up to, since she’s a BIG part of Missoula County getting more INTENTIONAL on using city-inspired financing schemes to drive development in the County. From the link (emphasis mine)

As economic activity grows in several development districts created by Missoula County in recent years, it’s now streamlining the authority board that oversees them.

On Tuesday, commissioners delegated wider oversight to the Development Authority, setting it up to serve in an advisory role to the county and its tax increment financing districts. The county has established several such districts to further economic development, including the Bonner West Log Yard and the Missoula Development Park near the airport.

…

Emily Brock, the county’s director of lands and economic development, said that while the Development Authority will now oversee each of the county’s TEDDs, its powers remain the same in other areas.

“We only addressed the tax increment piece,” she said. “We left all the existing powers of the port authority the same. It doesn’t take away the port authority’s existing powers. We want to explore those powers and see what we can do with them.”

While exploring power is definitely interesting–and something I share with Emily BROCK–I’m not sure we’re talking about the same powers here. Tracking the power I’m interested in, in a town the size of Missoula, means being aware of every possible angle of influence. I’ve been forced to think this way after sustaining nasty attacks behind the scenes, and seeing others get the same treatment.

Since the public is apparently incapable of fathoming the immense brain-work done by traffic engineers as they produce inspired traffic-calming road features, it really is unfortunate (and a touch ironic) that Matt Gibson helped Lee Enterprises kill the Indy.

Now it’s up to locals like me to attend and report on the transportation infrastructure being created because Council members like Heidi West used to get scared biking to work with her young kids in a bike trailer down Higgins. No wonder I’m having 2013 flashbacks of justifying the sitting on sidewalks ban because of stuff like this:

Copple also said Councilwoman Wolken, who went home before the vote to care for her newborn, wanted to let people know she had been chased by a drunk person outside the Oxford when she was seven months pregnant. Wolken worried about what might have happened if her partner hadn’t been waiting nearby with his car.

“I just am not OK with having our downtown be a scary place for a lot of the people who are working down there, who want to use it, who are visiting our town,” Copple said.

The public comments I made at the COUNTY COMMISSIONER meeting yesterday were not nearly as tonally antagonistic, even though the situation being presented to the public was similar. What do I mean? I mean the $750,000 dollars being made available for housing assistance has ALREADY been earmarked for programming. I am deducing this from how many times Josh Slotnick excitedly claimed details would be forthcoming.

My comments about the housing fund were about the general need to gain public trust by vetting recipients of any assistance doled out, and to be aware of housing policies that fuel revolving doors of need, like the Missoula Housing Authority imposing limits on overnight stays for guests, something that I know often leads to people losing housing when they can’t, or won’t, kick out a guest who has overstayed their welcome, for whatever reason.

Maybe that’s why narrative controllers disdain the public: not all of us are the reactionary yokels who make it easy for our elected braintrust to dismiss, and sometimes we even have valid points!

If you appreciate the point I make of posting FIVE times a week, with a WEEK in REVIEW podcast episode every Sunday, then consider making a donation at my about page. It’s deeply appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

I wasn’t thinking about Tobin Miller-Shearer on Tuesday afternoon as I sat in court waiting to see the slow grind of the alleged criminal justice system briefly give JD Partain his next court date. No, I was thinking about the Lee Enterprise’s NATIONAL coverage of the constitutionally atrocious public defender system that’s been rolling out articles like this one.

The search for racism that this man has turned into an academic career was something I came across later in the day, and I found it buried in this Kaimin article about ASUM. From the link (emphasis mine):

ASUM also discussed the external anti-racism audit of the senate, which the senate set aside $10,000 for Tobin Shearer’s non-profit to do. Shearer is the director of UM’s African-American studies program. The audit was supposed to finish up last semester, but only just started because of “technical issues” in the Business Service department due to its “understaffing,” Berna said in an email. 

An anti-racism audit helps a group to find out where it has either implicit or explicit biases, and how to correct them. 

President Bowles said this audit will take eight weeks, and the first week has been completed. The report will be made public, but its interviews with senators will remain confidential.

It’s difficult not to bold ALL this bullshit. Technical issues because of understaffing? And $10,000 dollars to conduct surveys that will be kept hidden? What a joke.

Meanwhile, if you’re a girl wondering what justice looks like for the adopted dad who admitted to secretly filming you fully undress in your bedroom in AUGUST (2022), but it didn’t get charged until NOVEMBER, then the NOT guilty plea was entered in December, then stuff gets delayed and now the omnibus hearing won’t be until February, well, that’s just how the system works.

I sat in the courtroom for less than an hour and saw several brief court appearances, including the filing of a plea agreement in the deliberate homicide charge of the man accused of running over his girlfriend in the parking lot of WinCo. That happened October of 2021.

Does juxtaposing the time it takes for justice to run its course with ten grand to examine LARPing politicians on campus make the ten grand expenditure look even MORE obscene than it is? Good, because that’s my intention.

If you appreciate my intentions, please consider making a financial donation at my about page. Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

If you don’t think sidewalk policy has explosive potential in Missoula, that’s probably because you haven’t experienced the RAGE of a sidewalk advocate like Gwen Jones. I have, and it wasn’t pretty, nor was it an enjoyable experience for the HR person who had to protect the organization from being sued, since Gwen Jones raged at me in her official capacity as a board member.

Before getting to the specifics of sidewalk policy, allow me to opine on the larger dynamics I see at play here, and that’s the problem of applying abstract concepts to the messy reality of human behavior. I’ve warned about this disconnect when it comes to the push for RED FLAG laws in Montana because if you make a law, GUESS WHAT? You have to enforce it. Crazy, huh. Here is a portion of what I wrote 5 years ago about red flag laws (emphasis mine):

The “fairly simple process” described here is still a process only a court can enact, so if there are already problems with the criminal justice system in a given community, like there are in Missoula and Montana, then I would imagine the courts would need more resources in order to properly oversee implementing red flag laws. Where are those resources going to come from in a state that just voted to erase health coverage for 100,000 Montanans?

Cost is just one problem advocates for gun control will need to address in order to make their case. Another problem with this approach to gun control is the potential chilling effect this could have for someone suffering from depression. It’s difficult enough to get people, especially men, to talk about their struggles with mental health. If those men are also gun owners, and they know coming forward could mean their guns will be taken from them, how many people are going to decide NOT to reach out for help?

Yet another issue is how this reporting system could be abused. There are lots of dysfunctional families out there, made worse by our divisive political environment, and I can see heated arguments turning into attempts by disgruntled family members to get someone’s guns taken away as revenge/retribution. This will just add more work to already over-burdened courts.

Now, on to the sidewalk drama I anticipated years ago. Turns out, our city officials are getting pummeled by reports that don’t pan out, and verifying all this is becoming a REAL problem. From the link (emphasis mine):

City officials in Missoula say they’re seeing a spike in false reports of property owners not shoveling their sidewalks.

The city said it takes time for staff to write the violation, and it could lead to an unwarranted assessment on a property owner’s tax bill.

Officials are asking residents not to make complaints out of spite or as a joke.

Yep, that’s right, thanks to the lack of foresight from local government, this snow-clearing policy could provide a legal avenue for your crazy neighbor to screw with your property tax bill, which is already a fucking atrocity. This policy is made even MORE offensive by local officials acknowledging the undue and sometimes dangerous burden on those with physical impairments.

Owens clearly stated the snow removal ordinance and also referred to Missoula’s elderly residents who often need help in snow removal.

“So the ordinance is very clear, and it’s the same for both residential and for business owners’” she said. “After a significant snowfall, their sidewalks need to be cleared by 9:00 a.m. the following morning. It’s really hard on the elderly because it only takes one slip and fall out on snow while they’re shoveling to break a hip or receive another injury. For that reason, we really try to work with our elderly population to try to find somebody that will assist them and that goes as well for any individuals that are handicapped as well.”

One of the ways local government is able to NOT anticipate something is to NOT look at it. This powerful form of government denial was on display recently regarding the Higgins Bridge Beartracks Bridge scheme to reduce 4 lanes of traffic down to three, but actually just two, since no one in the public seems to understand what the middle lane on a bridge will be used for.

When asked about what this lane reduction will mean for events happening on campus, this was the response, according to the minutes from the meeting (emphasis mine):

Later today, after this article posts, I’ll be attending a mid-week Public Works meeting where the Higgins plan will be discussed. I assume the public will get one more chance to issue their impotent opinions before the reduction is approved, but you never know with this crew, led by a placeholder Mayor who was literally selected in a dark alley showdown at 2am.

I’d also like to take a moment to welcome back to civic life Jason Wiener, recently approved on a 9-0 vote for a board position that quickly places him at the top of my MULTI-MODAL all-star list. I remember Jason from back in the day, when he was a philosophy major. Now he’s a handpicked board member for the MULTI-MODAL radical who wants to keep playing at Mayor, Jordan Hess.

The last I heard of Jason Wiener, he was doing philosophical stuff by traipsing around the world. Here’s a synopsis from a Tell Us Something appearance from 2017:

Jason Weiner recounts his travels in a far-reaching corner of the world.

Jason Wiener is doing things more often than he is buying things and he is always looking for an excuse to go somewhere new. He recently returned from a walkabout and is still unpacking from that trip. He grew up in Concord, New Hampshire. He arrived in Missoula in 2003 to earn his Master’s in philosophy from the University of Montana. He’s worked at The Missoula Independent, served on the City Council and formed a computer consulting company called The Techxorcist. He’s a Ranger in Black Rock City every year at Burning Man.

Howdy Jason! I hope local media remembers how to spell and pronounce your last name correctly!

If you appreciate MY role within our local media landscape, please consider making a financial donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

If you listened to last week’s WEEK IN REVIEW you will know the snake referenced in the title of this post is the former Sheriff of Mineral County, Mike Toth. Why is this elusive authority figure being referred to as a snake by a lawyer with a VERY influential last name in Mineral County?

My suspicion is that Lance Jasper, of Reep, Bell & Jasper, is trying to set Toth up as the convenient fall guy for the CULTURE of corruption that permeates the Sheriff’s office, so when Jasper describes the opportunity to LOP OFF THE HEAD OF THE SNAKE in actual court, well, I’m wondering about all those Jasper family donations to the political campaign of the NEW Sheriff, Ryan Funke.

The judge presiding over this shit-show, Shane Vannatta, is being VERY patient with the incredibly troubling dynamics on display. He calmly reprimanded Jasper about his use of language while also reminding this duplicitous “helper” that the legal process HE INITIATED is an adversarial one. Why do I say Lance Jasper is being duplicitous? Well, because his “help” isn’t actually help, it’s an inappropriate DIRECT line of communication with the Sheriff, Ryan Funke, who SHOULD BE going through the Mineral County Attorney’s Office on matters of getting the court specific information, like hiring policies and other basic elements of local government functioning.

Now that we’ve discussed one of the snakes who wants another snake’s head lopped off, who are the pussies in this drama? You might think this is the part where I talk about Deputy County Attorney, Wally Congdon, but you would be wrong. Pussies are people who consciously avoid difficult things, and I’m not entirely sure how consciously Wally Congdon is doing ANYTHING in his official role as Deputy County Attorney.

No, the pussies in this drama have initials like DB and they don’t act overtly in ways that would expose them to accountability. I’ll even include the LifeGuard Group in this category, since it was the Rebekah Barsotti case that put this group on my radar in the first place when a LifeGuard staff member by the name of Joe Danzer lied to my face about the LifeGuard Group’s involvement in the search for Rebekah when she was just a missing person and her family had hope that officials were capable of doing their fucking jobs.

Here is a post I wrote last February about these local helpers. From the link:

I’m also still curious why Joe Danzer, the SEARCH COORDINATOR for LifeGuard Group, seemingly lied to me about his participation in the search for Rebekah Barsotti. 

Last week I called the Sheriff’s Department, explaining that I wanted to speak with Lowell Hochhalter about any documentation that might prove Joe Danzer was being honest with me. I was told by the woman I spoke to that she would send Hochhalter an email with my contact info and my inquiry, since there is apparently no direct line that he can be reached at. So far, I haven’t heard anything back.

Did I ever hear back from Lowell Hochhalter? No, I did not. Does avoiding a journalist’s questions place Lowell Hochhalter in the pussy category? You can be the judge of that. I’m busy looking into Lowell’s interesting history, like this article I found from 2016. From the link (emphasis mine):

Leaders of “Say Something,” a touring school assemblies program about human trafficking, say their goals for the initiative are to not only increase awareness of the problem in the U.S., but to empower students to take pre-emptive action on behalf of vulnerable youth.

Currently in its fourth year of existence, Say Something has made presentations at 200 schools and in front of about 300,000 students. Say Something partners with F.R.E.E. International, an Assemblies of God U.S. Missions organization that exists to abolish modern slavery.

Say Something co-founder Lowell Hochhalter believes his experience during the past two decades, including with Youth Alive, a program of the AG’s national Youth Ministries, gives him a perspective on social problems that have become more commonplace.

“When we started with Youth Alive we were dealing with issues of drugs and alcohol for teenagers, but the more I spoke at schools and the more I talked to students, I began to realize that the issues we were dealing with were not the issues of the ‘80s and the ‘90s,” Hochhalter says. “We were not privy to it, and maybe we were just not paying attention.”

What is Lowell Hochhalter paying attention to now? Is he paying attention to my posts about his pretend anti-trafficking organization? Or maybe he’s paying attention to the people NOT mentioning his group, like Sergeant Prather on a local podcast about human trafficking, and Governor Gianforte during his State of the State address? Or maybe there are other things brewing that this Meow-Man is paying attention to, inspiring posts on Facebook like this one:

Yes, this man is on the search for COOPERATIVE LEADERSHIP while putting pictures of little girls wearing boxing gloves on his website. Maybe someone should ask the leadership of the LifeGuard Group why the leadership that already exists in this anti-trafficking field choose NOT to collaborate with him and his family-run “non-profit”?

Are there any gullible “leaders” out there considering working with this group? If so, let’s take a look at some of the other yowlers doing God’s work through this faith-based effort to stop human-trafficking, people like board president, Derek Talley:

And here is Lowell’s wife, Tammi, who is ALSO the Director of Development. No conflict there, right?

These smiles remind me of something, but I’m having difficulty putting my finger on it. Maybe this image will help describe the feeling I’m having:

That’s not quite right. Maybe this one fits the theme of the post a bit better:

Maybe by now those smiles are gone. If anything resembling “justice” still exists in this state, I’m thinking this is a more appropriate image:

If you appreciate the HISSES and MEOWS of this post, then consider making a financial contribution at my about page to keep this coverage going. Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!