Month: March 2025

by Travis Mateer

UPDATED WITH MUGSHOT BELOW

If you’re a bartender making drinks at bars like the Top Hat and Al and Vics here in Missoula, I regret to inform you that it’s now YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to call 911 if you see THIS WOMAN attempting to lubricate herself with booze in one of your fine establishments.

While the loss in sales might sting a bit, I guarantee being hit by a motor vehicle stings A LOT MORE, but only if you survive it. Thankfully Ellie Boldman, a Missoula State Senator who was recently passing the popcorn in celebration of OTHER PEOPLE’S dysfunction, didn’t actually go anywhere before passing out in her car with the engine running.

Normally ChatGPT gives me guff about creating scenarios of criminality, but the “Metcalf Dinner” drink, which appears to be in a pint glass, was ALL AI, not me. Since Ellie is a practicing lawyer, I figured I should make that point clear before quoting the above link about Boldman’s arrest and subsequent plea of GUILTY in a Helena court of law Monday:

A state senator from Missoula pleaded guilty to a charge of driving under the influence after a political fundraising event on Saturday.

Missoula attorney and Democratic state Sen. Ellie Boldman pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor offense in Helena Municipal Court Monday morning. She admitted to having a blood alcohol content of 0.149 while in physical control of a vehicle.

According to a copy of the police citation, Boldman was sleeping in her running vehicle that was obstructing the roadway.

This is pretty fascinating to see, especially considering Missoula’s State Senator has MY mugshot posted at her place of business, which is the Senior Center, a curious development in my effort to expose of our local cabal I wrote about last year in a special profile for Western Montana News (click on the link if you’d like to see the mugshot).

I sure hope someone in the media obtains Ellie’s mugshot, since I haven’t seen it appear yet. I would try myself, but the noise I’m hearing about my own legal issues has me wondering how much the first amendment is actually understood and respected by our local prosecutors.

UPDATE

For more context on Missoula’s most embarrassing political operator, here are some relevant posts:

Rules For Thee, Not For Me: The Political Career Of Missoula Democrat Ellie Hill (November 17th, 2020)

Montana State Senator Ellie Boldman (no longer) Smith’s Survival Guide For 2021: Covid Cash! (January 4th, 2021

Another Missoula Current Article About Job Retention Money That Omits Scrutinizing A Democratic Politician Named Ellie (January 21st, 2021)

The Job Retention Financial Report(s) Ellie Boldman (no longer) Smith Will Have To Fill Out For Her Covid Cash (March 22nd, 2021)

Weathering The Covid Financial Storm Is Easier With Uncle Sam’s Umbrella, Right Ellie? (September 13th, 2021)

Missoula Democrat, Ellie Boldman, Does What The Missoulian Refuses To Do: Kiss Governor Gianforte’s Ass (October 7th, 2022)

Zooey Zephyr Joins Ellie Boldman In A Shared Experience With…Time Magazine (September 19th, 2023)

Will Anyone Litigate Ellie Boldman For Blocking People On Social Media? (March 27th, 2024)

Danger, Will Robinson! (May 30th, 2024)

My Anniversary Gift To The Poverello Center Is Detailing Why MY Ellie Boldman Problem Is YOUR Ellie Boldman Problem (June 27th, 2024)

My Prediction For The Missoula Senior Center (October 15th, 2024)

Pass The Popcorn, Ellie, Steve B. Is Flooding The Zone! (February 19th, 2025)

Since I know locals who slave away in the service sector are much too busy and disinterested to keep up on statewide news, especially a headline coming out of Helena, I’m going to MAKE SURE that local bartenders understand the risk of enabling someone like Ellie, a problematic drinker who now, thanks to this arrest, isn’t legally allowed in a bar now until September (emphasis mine):

Boldman was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine, with $300 suspended. She also received a 180 day suspended jail sentence, meaning the court will not require Boldman to serve jail time, unless she violates the conditions of her sentence. She’s prohibited from entering a bar or casino for six months, and will undergo a chemical dependency evaluation.

You’re welcome, Missoula!

If you would like to show your appreciation for my local reporting with an online monetary donation, please consider Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Recognition is important. For me, I seek it out wherever I can get it, which tends to be the kind people selling me weed and coffee. When I’m feeling down from becoming a targeted individual for my local exposure of BS, like Tax Increment Financing, I know not EVERYONE has the kind of opinion Detective Guy Baker has of me.

Sometimes negative narratives are GOOD for bottom-lines, like what you’re about to read from Sara. But first, what you should know about Sara before reading her scary story of a scary dystopia that will most definitely descend WITHOUT that BS I mentioned earlier (Tax Increment Financing) is this: Sara works for the Snowy Mountain Development Corporation, which describes itself like this:

In 2001, a group of community-minded volunteers founded Snowy Mountain Development Corporation (SMDC) as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to build community and economic capital in a six-county area comprised of Fergus, Judith Basin, Wheatland, Petroleum, Musselshell and Golden Valley Counties situated at the geographical heart of the State of Montana.

Local, state, and federal governments provide funding for SMDC to carry out this mission. Notably, the US Economic Development Administration recognizes SMDC as an Economic Development District and the State of Montana recognizes SMDC as a Certified Regional Development Corporation. With these designations is funding to support SMDC’s partnerships with local governments, community organizations, businesses, and entrepreneurs to implement key community and economic development projects.

Ok, with all that in mind, here’s what Sara wants you to think about the terrible possibilities that would result, according to her, if a Montana State Legislator gets his way with TIF. From the link (emphasis mine):

Think about it, folks. What happens when properties are vacant and fall into a state of disrepair? They get more expensive to fix. They attract crime, vagrants, drugs, vandalism, homelessness, poverty, and all those conditions of despair that accompany them. As property values decline, the values of the structures around them decline. Those with the means to do so flee to the suburbs. Businesses follow.

Meanwhile, the city’s tax revenues plummet and the demand for essential services skyrockets with increased police, fire and ambulance calls; vandalized street, traffic, and security lights; crumbling curbs, gutters, sidewalks and potholed streets; broken water mains and sewage contamination; and more, and more, and more. This is the physical evidence of market failure. And Hertz’s reform offers no remedy for it. Rather, it hamstrings every local government’s ability to address it without shifting it all on to you.

Instead of using more words to counter Sara’s FEAR campaign, here’s the REVIVED LINK to my documentary, revived thanks to the help of my collaborators. Instead of paying the Vimeo extortion price-tag, we put it up on Youtube for your viewing pleasure.

You’re welcome.

While I appreciate Hertz tilting his lance at the TIF windmill, I suspect his position on TIF might be like how a broken clock is accurate two times a day. Otherwise I’m not sure how to understand the idiotic ceiling on weed potency Hertz is proposing.

A proposed legislative measure, Senate Bill 443, has sparked significant controversy among cannabis industry stakeholders and consumers in Montana. The bill aims to revise state drug laws by limiting the THC content in marijuana products to 15 percent, including flower, concentrates, and edibles. Critics of the bill argue that it could severely harm local businesses and infringe upon consumer rights.

I’ll fully admit my bias on this issue because, without STRONG Cannabis, there’s no way I could read about the winner to today’s BS Award, Mayor Andrea Davis, who got her own recognition recently, which I consider to be total BS.

Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis’s reelection campaign sent out the following:

Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis has been named one of 61 Women of the Year by USA Today. Davis joins Hota Kotb, recently of the Today Show, Olympic rugby medalist Ilona Maher, United Way CEO Angela F. Williams and a host of other influential, committed and talented women who do their best every day to improve the lives of women and everyone else in their communities.

Ok, maybe if CAN-KICKING was a measure of civic accomplishment, Davis would deserve to be recognized, but taking so long to develop a METH COLONIES IN PUBLIC PARKS policy that sparked such widespread public outrage that it was overturned, well, I’ll be interested to see how our Mayor plans to tell us that up is really down.

If you appreciate my sense of direction, make sure to show that appreciation, if you can, at Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or the other methods I’m hoping to make available soon.

Thanks for reading!