Month: December 2025

There are SO MANY reasons local government will suck in 2026, but this post will just touch on just a few, like the New York real estate expertise our new City Council member, Justin Ponton, brings to the “horseshoe” where Council does their “business”.

Ponton’s seven years in New York isn’t mentioned in the Montana Free Press article that describes this property-peddling parasite like this:

Ponton, the CEO of Montana Regional Multiple Listing Service, said he wanted to use his experience to help increase the city’s housing supply, balance the budget and improve infrastructure.

Since locals are being severely priced out of living in western Montana, it’s a bit confounding to me why the majority of voters would give this guy any foothold in local government, but I guess I just haven’t set my expectation low enough when it comes to how informed the voters in this retarded valley actually are.

Before I describe the work Justin does to help wealthy out-of-state buyers own a little piece of Big Sky to retreat to, here’s how he describes his time in New York from a Missoula real estate questionnaire (PDF):

If you can’t read the screenshot, it says Ponton worked for a “large publicly traded real estate investment trust”. Isn’t that impressive, serfs?

Now, here’s what he’s currently running for his day job from a website called AGENT FIRE! Again, very impressive.

The Montana Regional MLS (MRMLS) is a go-to resource for real estate professionals and clients looking for the most up-to-date, accurate, and complete information on real estate for sale in Montana. Covering a vast and diverse region in Central and Western Montana, from the stunning Rocky Mountains to the Idaho state line, MRMLS has you covered.

As a REALTOR®-owned MLS, MRMLS is all about upholding the highest standards of professionalism and sticking to the tried-and-true REALTOR® Code of Ethics. This means clients can trust in the integrity and reliability of the services provided by MRMLS members.

By bringing together subscribers from six REALTOR® associations across Western and Central Montana into a single database, MRMLS makes interactions between professionals a breeze and simplifies the process for buyers and sellers. This team effort allows MRMLS to keep up with the growing demand for comprehensive real estate information throughout the state, delivering top-notch service to everyone involved in the real estate transaction.

Moving on, the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, which includes the coroner, will be doing something interesting next year. Will they finally be arresting a suspect in the brutal murder of Delphine Farmer? Or maybe they’ll finally ID the corpse found on a popular hiking trail on November 14th?

No, doing those things would entail actually doing their job instead of trying to convince citizens they are competent by running a CITIZEN ACADEMY. When I saw this article my first thought was ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office is hosting its first Sheriff’s Citizen’s Academy.

Attendees will get insight into patrol operation, investigations, K9 programs, explosive ordinance disposal, detention operations, search and rescue and more.

The academy is free, but the course is taught in a total of 18 hours over a six-week span.

FREE? Nothing in life is “free”, Sheriff Petersen, so how much is running this “Citizen Academy” going to cost tax payers? I’d email the Sheriff’s communication person, Jeanette, but my experience has shown these communication specialists are fucking worthless, seemingly by design.

Nationally, Republicans are framing the Minnesota Somali issue as purely a BLUE STATE vs. RED STATE issue, but, in my post yesterday, I pointed out how Montana Republicans are so insanely incompetent, they can’t even get together a plan to put an electronic records system in place for Montana’s State Hospital, which lost Medicare/Medicaid funding for being a dangerous dumpster fire.

Here’s another quote from the article I cited that emphasizes how STATE politicians utterly fail local communities, like Missoula, when it comes to the basic 21st century functioning of a major state run institution:

State lawmakers in particular have for years been fixated on the paper-record quandary. In meeting after meeting (and legislative session after legislative session), lawmakers have been flummoxed by the lack of an electronic health record — a stark reminder of how many systems need changing in the hospital’s efforts to regain certification from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the facility lost good standing in 2022 following a series of patient deaths and injuries.

State health department director Charlie Brereton has long said the state hospital aims to apply for recertification by the end of December. At a meeting Dec. 16 with lawmakers on the budget subcommittee that oversees his department, Brereton confirmed the agency was still operating on that timeline, even without an electronic health record, or EHR, system in place.

“How is the EHR going? That — that hunt,” asked Rep. Jane Gillette, a Republican from Three Forks and the committee chair, briefly fumbling for words to describe the delayed transition.

“Madam Chair, the EHR project is very much a… work stream in motion,” Brereton said, also searching for the right descriptive phrase. “We have not formally launched that [request for proposals] yet … But that is a — to be totally honest with you — a pretty slow-moving project at this point.”

Is the functioning of Montana’s State Hospital important? It should be, especially for our Harvard-trained Mayor who engaged in some tone policing of a public comment recently from a man who is so mentally ill, he’s been deemed un-prosecutable by our local Municipal Court.

Here’s a link to the comment.

I only know about this man’s mental health assessment because I was in the courtroom the day his assessment was read aloud, in front of many people, with apparently no concern for HIPPA. That is why I know Mr. Spitzmacher (spelling?) could literally rush up to our Mayor and start punching her violently in the face and the only thing that would happen to him as a consequence would be a little R&R time at our 19th century facility in Warm Springs.

Why is this guy here? From what I can tell he was being crazy in Salt Lake City before, I assume, getting “help” to leave and come to the retarded homeless Mecca of Montana. Once here, the kind of astro-turf exploitation of homeless people as political pawns that I documented in this insightful post from last December used people like Karl Spitzmacher to lambast City Council for being mean to urban campers.

And guess what? After the hot-button issue and short-term value of these exploited humans was over, the exploiters went back to their homes, leaving the crazies to keep being crazy for the Harvard-trained tone-police Mayor to chastise.

I anticipated all this back in June of 2024 when the famous-for-being-poor writer, Stephanie Land, used her new Netflix star power to shame City Council for actually hearing the escalating complaints from citizens about drugs and crime. How’s that book coming, Stephanie? If you’re still working on it, maybe this October post will help.

Just kidding, I’ve got my own book to work on, and when I’m done, I hope more people will understand why I’ve come to absolutely despise this town where I’ve lived for 25 years.

Thanks for reading!

Do people love independent journalists? Right now, yes, people think they love independent journalists because some kid in a hoodie is exposing fraud in Minnesota. This has created a great opportunity for grifters like Jonathan Choe to get clicks for his think tank, the Discovery Institute.

Back in July I wrote about “journalists” like Jonathan Choe and Kevin Dahlgren and the guy who started the Discovery Institute, Bruce Chapman. Here’s a little more about Chapman’s history, including his connection to the Hudson Institute:

Chapman was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the position of Director of the United States Census Bureau and served in that role from 1981 until 1983.[citation needed] Between 1983 and 1985 he was Deputy Assistant to President Reagan and Director of the White House Office of Planning and Evaluation. From 1985 to 1988 he served in the appointed position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations International Organizations in Vienna. His portfolio included nuclear proliferation, refugees, economic development, and the control of narcotics.

From 1988 to 1990, Chapman was a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Chapman left the Hudson Institute in 1990 and cofounded the Discovery Institute along with George Franklin Gilder in 1991. The institute is best known as the hub of the pseudoscientific Intelligent design movement, and also focuses on a broad range of issues, including: economics, transportation, technology, and citizen leadership. In 2011, Chapman became chairman of the Discovery Institute.

And here’s some context on the Hudson Institute for anyone curious about where their “independent journalism” derives from:

The Hudson Institute was founded in 1961 by Herman Kahn, Max Singer, and Oscar M. Ruebhausen. Kahn was a Cold War icon, often interviewed in magazines, who was purported to have the highest IQ on record and partly inspired the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove. In 1960, while employed at the RAND Corporation, Kahn had given a series of lectures at Princeton University on scenarios related to nuclear war. In 1960, Princeton University Press published On Thermonuclear War, a book-length expansion of Kahn’s lecture notes. Major controversies ensued, and Kahn and RAND parted ways.

If I want to be successful, a recent X-user told me, I need to “pick a side”. It would appear my position that both political parties are fucking worthless is not a very popular position to maintain.

Sorry, Jesse, after Republicans won nearly every big political race in Montana, I’ve seen what these dumb motherfuckers have done with all their clout, and it’s been VERY pathetic. How pathetic? THIS pathetic!

In a meeting last week, state lawmakers asked an elephant-in-the-room question: Will federal regulators recertify the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs in 2026 if the adult psychiatric facility still doesn’t have an electronic medical record system?

The fact that the 270-bed facility — a fixture of Montana’s mental health system for more than 100 years — still operates with a largely paper-based medical record system may be news to people who aren’t reporters, health care providers or state officials. 

Yes, you are reading this correctly. A modern state like Montana, in the year 2025, has a state hospital that lacks an electronic medical record system. This is BEYOND embarrassing, it should be criminal negligence, and anyone in a budgetary political position should be absolutely lambasted for their pathetic failure, the kind of failure that will NOT help Missoula’s homeless crisis.

But, if I “picked a side”, I would have to studiously avoid holding Republicans accountable for their utter failure to actually fix anything in this state, including property taxes skyrocketing. Republicans in Montana are utterly pathetic, and I WILL NOT shy away from saying so.

My bipartisan disdain definitely doesn’t help me out, financially or socially. Sure, I recently identified a hilarious bridge scenario in which Missoula built a bridge they will be removing less than 10 years later for a combined total of $1.6 million dollars, and Western Montana News picked up my story to give it stronger conservative legs on which to run, but on Reddit, it’s sometimes easier to attack the messengers.

That last comment is lovely because it’s true that I am a broke loser living off my parents right now. I even got fired from my part-time dishwashing job on Saturday after enduring quite a hostile work environment that included my former friend being investigated for killing my co-worker, Leah. But a conservative? No, I’m a hyper-localist who shows how power flexes when someone like me tries to break the narrative control that keeps other, less-informed people silo’d.

I don’t play partisan information games and for that I’ve been targeted, so the haters should appreciate what Missoula’s leadership is capable of, whether it’s “conservative” cops, “liberal” judges, “non-partisan” non-profits, or other local influencers, I am pretty reviled by anyone with the power to do anything.

Oh well. The book I’m working on will help contextualize how narrative control functions, and it will show how far back you have to go to understand the infiltration that has occurred over time, rendering labels like “conservative” and “liberal” as effectively meaningless.

If you would like to support this unicorn who doesn’t have a think tank funding him, my gofundme page is still active and waiting for your donation. And next year, which is right around the corner, will mark a full decade of me running this humble little blog, so obviously I have some longevity when it comes to exposing local corruption, no matter what label it’s hiding behind.

Thanks for reading!

Now that the Missoulian reporter with the best name AND mustache (Seaborn Larson) is joining the retirement party for Detective Baker–the one I kicked off all the way back in July–I’d like to make another early call, one that comes from just a hunch: by this time next year expect Baker to have broken a major lead in the Jermain Charlo case as a PI working for the Charlo family.

Having recently gained an extra $100 dollar donation for my unpaid citizen journalism offered here, at Zoom Chron, for free, I rolled confidently into the gas station to purchase a hardcopy of the Missoulian for a whopping THREE DOLLARS. Some things must be preserved, like the quote below the picture.

Here’s one of the quotes I paid cash money for because it will look great in my book, especially considering it comes from a tale told by an FBI agent about our esteemed Detective:

“He’s an exceptional interviewer, he’s a very hard worker and it’s been a great run,” Shaide said.

One instance that stood out to Shaide happened about 10 years ago, when their pursuit of a high-level cocaine distributor took them to San Diego. There, they connected with local FBI agents and geared up to “hit a place.”

“We end up booting in the door, grabbing a guy and getting him into custody,” Shaide said. Federal agents were moving through home gathering evidence, “…and I remember Guy looking at me and goes, ‘Am I in a movie right now?'”

Is it good to have a Detective actively communicating his thin-grasp on reality in a moment of intensity where I’m assuming his finger was pretty close to a trigger? With other badges in western Montana, like former Sheriff of Mineral County, Mike Toth, taking their movie fantasies as far as becoming an extra on one, I’d say this might be a good thing to speak with a therapist about, which every first responder SHOULD be doing, since their leaders have become so quick to play the victim card for those in power (something I explore in fascinating detail in my book).

Here’s another red flag regarding something called “boundaries”, which I had to help others deal with in a professional capacity when I supervised staff at the Poverello Center many years ago. I bet Eran Pehan and Theresa Williams know what I’m talking about when I say this is a red flag:

Baker said he’s maintaining a bond with more than a few victims, well after the cases have been closed. He’s wanted to treat victims the way he’d want a policeman to treat his own wife or children.

“I’ve always really been eager to talk that position,” he said.

I’ll keep the rest of my insights to myself, for now. Instead, how about a GIFT? Like using the curious timing of a retirement article two days before Christmas to do something very naughty to a Christmas classic? Click the link, you won’t be disappointed.

I will add one more insight, and that’s how the public is getting less and less information, even though more and more people within government seem to get paid to disseminate information. Isn’t that weird?

Montana’s sexual and violent offender registry is undergoing major changes following a Montana Supreme Court ruling that limits what information the state can publicly share, even retroactively.

The decision affects more than 1,100 Montana sexual and violent offenders, 90 of whom are Tier 3, the highest risk offenders to the community. The order removes or reduces long-standing requirements for people convicted before newer registry laws were enacted.

Photos, convictions, and living or working restrictions are no longer publicly available in those cases, prompting concern from law enforcement and community members, such as Hannah Flocchini.

“I love that we have a beautiful community here in Billings,” she said in a recent interview.

Flocchini, herself a survivor of child sexual abuse, regularly checks the state’s sexual and violent offender registry to stay informed about who lives nearby.

“It helps me to be more aware of my surroundings. It helps me to be more cautious,” she said.

But for those like her, that awareness could be harder to maintain.

“Offenders are typically repeat offenders,” Flocchini said.

And what she finds on the registry is changing.

“This is kind of some horrifying stuff that our Supreme Court has put us through,” said Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

Always someone else to blame in victim-land, I guess. Who cares about local impacts?

HO, HO, HO, friends and foes, and a VERY MERRY X-MAS!

There were some “news” stories about Montana cops recently that caught my attention, like this one about Missoula sending cops to Bozeman to make sure people in Bozeman were safe as they watched a football game.

Some are calling it the most important football game in Montana history. The Brawl of the Wild 2.0 is this Saturday, and the Missoula Police Department has a message. 

“This weekend’s FCS semi-final playoff game will once again bring together two of Montana’s biggest rivals, the Montana Grizzlies and the Montana State Bobcats, as they face off in Bozeman,” said Police Public Information Officer Whitney Bennett. “While the teams battle it out on the field, the Missoula Police Department and Bozeman Police Department are teaming up behind the scenes to help ensure a safe and enjoyable event for everyone attending.” 

As part of a mutual aid agreement, Bennett said MPD will send officers to Bozeman on Friday to assist with public safety efforts throughout the city, as this reflects the strong working relationship between their agencies. 

“The City of Missoula and the City of Bozeman will share costs associated with the deployment,” Bennett said. “The City of Missoula will remain fully staffed throughout the weekend and capable of meeting all normal operational needs.” 

The other story is even more curious to me because it involves celebrating cops in Missoula for doing their job when they scrambled to find a missing woman who apparently tried saving her dog in the river, then drowned. The reason there’s a “news” story is because the dead woman’s Israeli dad has an Israeli soldier buddy who made wood plaques that some terrible customs people made holes in.

“As a gesture of gratitude, Danit’s father, Simon Ehrlich, shared a personal connection that led to an extraordinary act of kindness,” Bennett said. “Simon, who is Israeli, served in the Israeli military alongside Samuel Zohar, a lifelong friend. After hearing Simon describe the support shown by the Missoula Police Department and Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, Samuel hand-crafted wooden plaques in Israel to honor both agencies.” 

During shipment to the United States, the plaques were detained by U.S. Customs and were drilled for security purposes, resulting in damage.  

“Upon receiving them, the Missoula Police Department contacted A Carousel for Missoula’s Pony Keepers, the volunteer artisans who develop and maintain the Missoula Carousel,” Bennett said. “Ron Larson, a 15-year Pony Keeper, generously repaired the plaques, donating his time and expertise at no cost. To honor Danit’s memory and the collective efforts surrounding this incident, the Missoula Police Department will display a plaque, along with photographs documenting the damage and a brief description of the repairs, within the department.” 

Bennett said this display will serve as a lasting reminder of Danit, the community’s support, and the appreciation many have for the work performed by first responders and assisting agencies during difficult and emotionally challenging circumstances. 

The role of a lawman in another dead woman’s case should get new scrutiny after Judge Vannatta stopped protecting Ryan Funke and the Mineral County Sheriff’s Office from sealed documents in the long war that the Sheriff’s Office has been waging against the County Attorney’s Office. For my perspective, this article I published in May of 2024 has a dozen links to additional coverage I’ve provided about Mineral County over the last few years.

I’m not going to get into the details with this post about the current disclosures coming from Mineral County yet, not three days before Christmas. Instead here’s a local article from four years ago that gives some general impressions on what being a Brady Cop means:

We’ve seen enough police procedural shows to get the basic premise of discovery or the exchange of information between two attorneys involved in a court case. It is particularly critical when a prosecutor’s case hinges on a law enforcement officer’s testimony.

That’s where the Brady List comes in. It’s basically a collection of police officers with credibility problems. Being able to access it could determine whether you get a fair trial.

Yes, there are definitely cops in western Montana with credibility problems, but holding those cops accountable is one of the most impossible actions to take because they ARE the law. To give readers a hint of what I will be writing about at greater length soon, here’s the book I just finished reading and the contents are EXPLOSIVE regarding the corruption I’ve been investigating since the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office euthanized Sean Stevenson and murdered Johnny Lee Perry.

My main challenge is integrating quotes from this book into MY book, which I’m currently revising. I just wish the email on the inside of the book cover didn’t appear to be non-functioning.

Here’s a blurb from a weird books-for-inmates website where this book is available (Missoula locals can pick it up at Book Exchange):

In the mountain town of Whitefish, accusations flew between a controversial tech tycoon and a Marine Corps veteran with a shadowy past. The one-time friends had created Amyntor Group, a mysterious Montana business with global ambitions. Multiple investigations surrounding the two men and their company produced shocking allegations about fraud, sex, crooked cops, the Trump White House, and the CIA. When the dust settled, dozens of journalists, lawyers, business leaders, and government officials were left wondering whether any of it was true.

When I heard rumors that Johnny Lee Perry’s girlfriend had a dad who supposedly worked for the CIA, I wrote it off as absurd street talk. Now I’m not so sure.

Writing critically about local law enforcement and their extensive abuses of power while other media outlets publish puff pieces–all while that body found on November 14th down the Kim Williams trail has STILL not been publicly identified–is a lonely and NOT lucrative endeavor, so I was feeling pretty sorry for myself on Friday night as I grocery shopped in sweat pants. When a woman asked if I was Travis, then gave me a $100 dollar cash donation, I stammered something so as not to be totally speechless, then walked home with leaky eyes.

So thank you, readers of Zoom Chron, for the continued support. Next year will mark a full decade of blogging at this site, and 16 years overall. When I finish revising my manuscript, get ready to reassess what you think you know about this humble little college mountain town!

When I saw this article about the library “testing the mood” regarding asking the public for more money I thought maybe it was a joke. There’s no way the same assholes who just panhandled multiple jurisdictions for over a million dollars for a “living roof” would ask for MORE money already, right?

Wrong.

Backers of the Missoula Public Library are testing the waters for a potential request to voters to boost funding for staff and services at the facility.

Some area residents received a digital survey from Lake Research in November that explores a number of potential scenarios, including a possible levy request for more funding.

Are they insane? Are they high? Because literally seven days ago this was the story from the same local media outlet:

Citing the heat produced by the Missoula Public Library’s roof and the need to address polluting stormwater runoff, members of the City Council on Wednesday approved a $149,000 contract to turn the rock roof into a green island.

To aid in the project, the city landed a $1 million grant from the Western Montana Conservation Commission’s green stormwater infrastructure program. The grant requires a 25% match, with the Library Foundation providing $70,000, and the Missoula Redevelopment Agency (MRA) and Missoula County each contributing roughly $75,000 over the next two fiscal years.

While the virtue-signalers who make budget decisions proclaimed dead homeless day day last night, the article that posted earlier in the day reported how LIVING homeless people could be part of this latest library panhandling effort. Are they really this tone deaf? Or maybe retarded?

Here’s more from the KPAX article on how “The Friends of the Library” and the “Library Foundation” are developing their panhandling propaganda to sell the public on this latest effort to squeeze more money from their tax-funded piggy bank:

“The Friends of the Library and the Library Foundation funded the survey, but they don’t have the authority to request a mill vote from the (county) commissioners,” said library director Slaven Lee. “The company that conducted the survey will present the results at the Library Board’s public meeting in January.”

Among other things, the survey tested various phrases and whether they’d make a potential voter more or less likely to support a funding boost.

Among them, the survey stated that “The library may not have the capacity to meet the public’s needs while meeting the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health issues.”

With dead homeless people being memorialized and living homeless people being used by the library to leverage more money from the public, I decided City Council needed to hear from me last night about how INSANE they all appear to be, especially when you factor in the building and then destroying of a bridge in less than ten years for a combined cost of $1.6 million dollars.

That’s why I suggested to Council that they wear Joker makeup, take a pile of cash, then burn it, because that’s essentially what their insanity is doing with tax money at this point. You can watch the video here (for some reason I can’t embed videos anymore and I don’t feel like figuring out why)

I need to stop paying attention to this shit because it’s not going to change. There are too many well-intentioned road-pavers to hell to stop at this point, so just enjoy the clown show. It’s all a fucking grift anyway, so just accept it.

Thanks for reading (I guess).