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!
