Missoula’s Waste-of-Time Gestures

Waste-of-Time Gestures
 
That’s what they are.
 
And the Missoula City Council loves ‘em!
 
Just loves ‘em to bits.
 
Meanwhile your taxes go up and you’re forced to make tough choices…like where to cut your budget.
 

• Will you be eating out less?
• Maybe you’ll buy fewer clothes.
• Perhaps what you spend at the grocery store will need a good look.

 
And that means local businesses suffer as well.
 
All so Engen can continue to eat from the trough (his pay’s gone from $64,000 in 2006 to $90,000 today…or $114,000 if you factor in the benefits).
 
It’s in the mayor's best interest to have his rubber-stamp City Council waste their time on useless gestures, on make-believe-problems.
 
It means they won’t have either the time or the inclination to dig into the budget to figure out the city’s real problems.
 
Let’s get into some of these waste-of-time gestures.
 

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As Missoula continues its economic decline, the City Council continues to waste time on useless measures, most of which are nothing more than gestures.
 
Take the April 2017 decision to divest from Wells Fargo.
 
Because of that decision, $2.6 million in city investments will now be managed by a fund not associated with Wells Faro.
 
My, the city really knows how to make a difference, doesn’t it?
 
Let’s be honest – no one cares about this, and it won’t have any effect on your life.
 
One City Council woman was so clueless as to that, however, that she actually welled-up in tears after the decision.
 
Missoula now joins a California town and the city of Seattle in sending this message.
 
Meanwhile, city workers and city residents continue to live under poverty-level wages and the highest taxes in the state.
 
It’s clear to me that the Missoula City Council wastes a lot of time – and your tax money – without making any real and substantive changes that benefit your life.
 
 
On June 12 the Missoula City Council voted to implement the Paris Accord locally.
 
Meanwhile the city can’t even recycle its glass.
 
One of the ways Missoula wants to uphold this Accord is by reducing the costs to operate its buildings.
 
Pray tell…how’s that going to happen?
 
Another plan is to promote green jobs and a green economy.
 
The key word here is “promote.” I ‘promote’ my books all the time. It doesn’t mean they sell.
 
The City Council wasted the better part of an hour discussing and patting themselves on the back over this. Meanwhile nothing in the city has changed.
 
 
 
Besides these two examples we have the recent ‘uproar’ over the Day of the Dead parade.
 
A year or so ago we had the decision to get rid of elephants from the Shriner’s Circus. Now those elephants perform in Billings and then are trucked-off to Spokane to wait for the circus to get done in Missoula.
 
The Council changed nothing with that decision, aside from making a few people feel good about themselves.
 
Meanwhile the local Shriner’s have less income, and less money to help burn victims, many of whom are children.
 
Yes, the City Council’s decisions do have actual consequences in the real world for real people. The Council doesn’t seem to realize this as it caters to small, but very vocal groups of irate citizens.
 
Two years ago we had the Council ‘abolish’ Columbus Day, renaming it Indigenous People’s Day.
 
The Council will of course have that day off, with pay.
 
Most of us will be working.
 
Engen’s working…working to get his local option sales tax, that is.
 
My God he wants the revenue.
 
He needs it.
 
If he could just tax you more when you purchase things, then he might not get as much flak for taxing your property more and more each year.
 
 
 
The election is a month from today. We’ll see how things turn out.