Today, at 9am, Missoula’s City Council will be viewing the final draft of the “strategic plan” for 2026-2030. To better understand Missoula’s strategic plan, let’s start with the “mission” and “vision” from this 8 page document:
Though PR language is inherently aspirational, the disparity between PR and current reality makes this “vision” and “mission” sound delusional. If I had to re-write REAL versions of these statements, it would go something like this:
Missoula is a two-faced, elitist, and disingenuous community where new transplants with money can live curated lives supported by a mono-party government and incestuous community partnerships in a city offering cost-prohibitive recreation, alcohol/drug culture, and grifter opportunities.
The City of Missoula enhances elitism and quality of life for the privileged caste through an increasingly expensive delivery of services, prioritized stewardship of public resources for the politically deserving, and a commitment to promoting the illusion of social, environmental, and economic resilience.
The first “pillar” of this plan focuses on “thriving people and neighborhoods”, but for today’s post it’s pillar 2 I’m interested in examining.
Thanks to the pernicious and expanding use of Tax Increment Financing hobbling the General Fund through the shell game of diverting money to Urban Renewal Districts and Targeted Economic Development Districts, the need to deliver a “timely and effective public safety response” leads to rising property taxes, and when taxes rise at a higher rate than wages, people struggle to cover the basic costs of living, and when people struggle to cover the basic costs of living, it impacts their overall feeling of safety, and decreased levels of feeling safe can lead to coping with substances, like drugs and alcohol, and coping with drugs and alcohol leads to all kinds of bad outcomes, like car crashes and burning your house down because you passed out with a lit cigarette in your hand.
Then we arrive at Goal 2.3, which is the goal to “strengthen behavioral health prevention, crisis response, and community stabilization“.
Exhibit A for Missoula’s failure on this front is the violent death of Ross Robertson, which I gave my first impression of on Sunday. After writing that post I found a case online that provides more context on Ross Robertson’s long struggle with mental health and Montana’s completely deplorable and dangerously broken mental health system.
A year ago, after a big chunk of money got directed by state legislators to improve Montana’s mental health system, the Montana Free Press covered the legislating, including one bill that included a provision that the State Hospital NOT get charged with contempt by local county attorney’s for refusing patients a bed if it wasn’t available. I think that’s a pretty good indicator of how fucked things have been in Montana.
During an April 15 hearing on Senate Bill 429 to revise criminal commitment procedures, Chad Parker, a state health department attorney, described the measure as “a very robustly negotiated bill.” Nanette Gilbertson, representing the Montana County Attorneys’ Association and the Montana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, said it contained elements “that I know were tough pills to swallow for both the associations I work for and the department.”
The bill would allow involuntary medication of defendants in county jails under certain circumstances — an idea state officials initially opposed — and prohibit the filing of a contempt charge if someone isn’t admitted to the Montana State Hospital for treatment because a bed isn’t available, which was important to the state to include.
From my time working at the Poverello Center (2008-2016) I can say that the Montana State Hospital is one of the biggest, most dangerous offenders when it comes to negatively impacting Montana’s overall safety as it relates to mental illness.
There were times working at the Poverello Center when we had to vehemently deny someone getting a direct discharge to the shelter from Warm Springs, where the state hospital is located. Then, to our immense frustration, they would show up anyway, usually after getting kicked out of the motel room that the hospital had set them up in.
County Attorney’s, Sheriffs, and everyone else in the criminal justice system across Montana cannot be the people to expect honest assessments from because they are huge parts of the problem. Law enforcement tend to exploit tragedies, like the Anaconda shooting at The Owl Bar that left 4 people dead last year, in order to get more funding and toys to track and trace the public, while County Attorneys default move with things that they control, like information, is to hide whatever they can from the public.
When a probation officer’s name I remembered from my shelter days, Abby Gruber, came up during Ross Robertson’s Coroner’s Inquest, I decided to call her up yesterday and we had a nice little catch-up chat. Beyond the general chat, nothing specific to the case could be shared with me (a member of the media) without first going through the Department of Corrections media contact person in Helena, so it was a quick call with Abby because I already knew that the official path would ultimately lead to the CCJI roadblock (Confidential Criminal Justice Information).
At least I can say, from my direct work experience, that Abby Gruber is one of the people still working inside the system that, in my opinion, deserves the recognition she received recently.
While most within in the system know that more capacity, on multiple fronts, is desperately needed, the future forecast for where to place that capacity is predictably NIMBY:
To understand the controversy surrounding locating a psychiatric hospital in Laurel, city officials have heard hours and hours of testimony objecting to the concept — even though nothing formal has been proposed and it’s nearly impossible to find a single public official willing to offer opinions on the record.
Part of that is because nothing has been formally proposed to the Laurel City Council — and on advice of the city’s attorney, the eight council members have remained silent because if and when a proposal is submitted to build the 32-bed facility there, those council members will decide whether to accept the annexation not (currently the land is in the county).
For years, the Montana State Hospital has been over capacity, forcing the state to do something about just having 53 psychiatric beds for criminal justice holds in a state of 1.2 million.
What spurred on a flood of negative comments and rallied the community was notice of the state entering a buy-sell agreement for 114 acres at the western edge of town, along Old U.S. Highway 10.
Did you catch the two numbers that GLARINGLY stand out from this quote?
In case the numbers snuck by you, allow me to repeat, for emphasis, that Montana has ONLY 53 psychiatric beds for a statewide population of 1.2 million people.
That, dear readers, is what’s truly insane, and it’s why local city leaders will always scapegoat the state when it comes to addressing the real problems we’re facing.
Thanks for reading!