Could There Be A Covert Data Center Agenda Behind Establishing A Sewer District For The Blackfoot Crossing Development? – by Travis Mateer

I finally watched the recording of last Thursday’s County Commissioner meeting and I have some clips to share about how sewer districts are created in Missoula County and the incredible power of the word SHALL, which Commissioner Slotnick described as a sort of legal trigger word that compels their rubber stamp to stamp any request that meets the official requirements.

In the first clip you will hear Commissioner Slotnick seemingly anticipate the public criticism about to be expressed by preemptively explaining what SHALL does to them, as Commissioners. Then the public comment is made, further triggering Commissioner Slotnick into a rare back-and-forth.

Josh Slotnick’s tone throughout this clip is defensive and highly emotional, which might not make sense at first, but when the acronyms of gentrification are uttered, it started making more sense to me.

While the sewer district for the Blackfoot Crossing is in a Targeted Economic Development District (TEDD), Slotnick’s clear frustration seemed focused on the fact that no request for Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has been made (yet), so it’s too early for the pesky public to be asking those types of pesky questions.

To help back him up, Slotnick called on the County Planner managing TEDDs, Andrew Hagemeier, to speak, but all Andrew did was admit that “we don’t have a lot of details about what his plans are for sewer and water“. If that’s true, isn’t a public meeting the opportunity for members of the public to, you know, ASK QUESTIONS?

Before the developer finally showed up virtually to make his pitch, another chronic commenter pointed out the deflection strategy of using semantics to strawman/gaslight the previous commenter, and the Commissioners listened because that’s THEIR FUCKING JOB.

Semantics are important, and not just because they are used sometimes by elected officials to appear powerless, like mind-controlled slaves beholden to conjuring gentrifiers. Sometimes semantics give you clues to who a person is, so listen to the following clip of the comment from the developer, Gregory Morse, and see if you can hear the two-word phrase that shaped my search for more context on him.

When you listen to the clip the first thing you will notice is how our triggered County Commissioner suddenly thaws when he realizes who he is talking to online, quickly reversing his declaration that the speaker only get 3 minutes. This is the DEVELOPER, Missoula public, and he’s gonna need a little more time to tell you about…

RADICAL CREATIVITY!!!

Oh no, I thought to myself, could this be morse code from a TECH BRO?!?

Truth be told, I wasn’t specifically thinking tech when I heard this man say RADICAL CREATIVITY, more venture-capitalist investor speak, but when I found more context online, the name SIEBEL definitely stood out.

If that’s not bad enough, Morse’s co-founding of “Just Ahead” helps put Montana MORE on the map than we already are for dudes who boast this kind of shit on his website:

When I saw this it clicked. Yeah, this sewer district is definitely going to come in handy for transforming Bonner to better serve the interests of the kind of assholes who say RADICAL CREATIVITY after suggesting they wake up every morning thinking about affordable housing.

Will this interest include a future data center someday soon?

Another curious and quiet move related to data centers happened last night at the City Land Commission, but so far there is no video available of this meeting, which is unusual. I’m also unclear as to whether or not the chance to make public comment was even offered, since I had trouble logging in to hear the meeting happen live.

The amended change to the Unified Development Code (UDC) that specifically addresses data centers was an admitted “band-aid”, but even with the explanation I listened to, the change still doesn’t make sense to me.

Can anyone translate this city-speak for me?

The part about “occupying less area” apparently went from 50% down to 10%, and there was some limited discussion about “unintended consequences”, but I’m unsure as to what all this actually means for the application the city received, which is what triggered this “band-aid” amendment.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a video clip for more clarity? Is this how east-coast transplants run local meetings, Danny Tenenbaum?

In all of my “data center” reporting I’ve focused on two main things, and that’s local processes and the larger game of narrative control.

For example, when Missoula officials think we are uniquely special, or when Erin Brockovich 2.0 with all her New York Times flair references our humble mountain college town, I’m going to be VERY skeptical.

To conclude this post I’m going to have to be as careful as possible because what the City Planning Commission heard last night from Eran Pehan’s office as the excuse for such a quickly needed “band-aid” amendment was the excuse that bills are brewing at the state level, which is definitely true, but it’s also true that Judge Vannatta’s interpretation of the First Amendment means I can’t directly write about the out-going Missoula legislator who just published an op-ed about those anti-data center bills ready to go for the next legislative session, and that’s too bad.

With that I think I’m done here. Donate if you can.

And thanks for reading.