by Travis Mateer

The big houses we build for money commonly known as BANKS are apparently not immune to the spreading insanity of wokeness currently colonizing the minds of liberally-inclined humans in this slowly collapsing nation commonly known as AMERICA. Don’t believe me? Here’s the proof:

Despite bank runs and larger solvency concerns within the financial system, and despite local headlines tracking the continued stratospheric rise of home prices, Ellen Buchanan and Company think NOW is a GREAT time to give over $700,000 in Tax Increment Funding to First Security Bank. From the second link:

The Missoula Redevelopment Agency’s board of commissioners on Thursday approved $700,000 in tax increment to make a number of public improvements alongside the bank’s private investment.

That includes $380,000 to deconstruct rather demolish two old buildings, allowing for materials to be salvaged and reused. It also includes $140,000 in right of way improvements such as public sidewalks, landscaping and the burying of power lines.

Once the project is finished, taxes on the property will more than doubled to around $280,000 annually. That funding will be further reinvested into other public projects throughout the Midtown area.

If you haven’t detected the sarcasm yet, let me clearly state I think the amount and timing of this handout of public money to a private bank is fucking nuts. In fact, I think it’s so fucking nuts that I virtually joined the board meeting on Thursday to make public comment. Was I successful? Nope, despite trying BOTH the video link AND the livestream link, I was NOT able to provide public comment, so instead I recorded my comment while the bullshit justification for this handout droned on in the background:

Earlier in the week I actually had the pleasure of sitting next to Ellen Buchanan at City Club, where the land reduction scheme for Higgins Avenue was being discussed. While I covered this in my illumination of multi-modal insanity article, I didn’t fully understand at the time WHY the owner of Betty’s Divine was so aligned with the city’s plan. Well, this article about her husband’s business makes it MUCH clearer what her motivation is.

If you want to puke in your mouth a little bit, here’s another article obnoxiously describing Missoula in the most insufferable way possible, since it smacks so obviously of gentrification (emphasis mine):

[I]t was at the party of a mutual friend where Matt McQuilkin and Jim Chapman first saw a hole in the Missoula coffee market and had the idea to start their own coffee roastery together. “It was one of the few plans made over beers that actually comes to fruition,” says McQuilkin.

“I always pulled coffee from out of town because I couldn’t find what I wanted in town,” says Chapman. “I knew I wanted to have a part in the flavor development and not just sell what other people did.”

Chapman and McQuilkin hatched their plan in the fall of 2009, and by the following summer, Black Coffee Roasting Company was born, offering organic coffees to Missoula’s burgeoning coffee connoisseur community. The city is a prime contender for a quality coffee scene. Missoula is a liberal, artsy, outdoorsy, university town of 60,000 nestled in a Rocky Mountain valley. Subarus and Toyotas line the streets, wielding bumper stickers proclaiming “Keep Missoula Weird” and “Know Your Farmer.” Some people joke that Missoula isn’t really part of Montana at all.

If you want a silver lining (to hedge against inflation), today is a day our totally healthy and well-adjusted culture promotes a greater-than-normal intake of alcohol because nothing screams coerced happiness like getting fall-down drunk! Do ya feel me, Butte?

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Thanks for reading!