Running for Missoula City Council

I’d like to run for the Missoula City Council this year. 

One of the ways that I’d run is with a plan. I won’t have a lot of money and I won’t have a lot of flashy gimmicks. But a good plan, well-executed, can get around all that nonsense and still bring home the win. 

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Childers

Here’s how I’d do that.

• Qualify My Prospect;
  
• Build Rapport with Voters;
  
• Get an Education While Providing Information;
  
• Close the Deal.
  

That might sound to you like I’m selling something, and the truth is, I am doing that – I’m selling myself. Some of you might be turned off by that, and that’s fine. Some of you realize that people are constantly selling. My son’s learning how. He’s starting to say, ‘maybe it would be good for me to have a small piece of chocolate.’

Two good words in there – maybe and small. These are good selling propositions, and they’ll increase my likelihood of giving that chocolate.

Anyways, back to voters.

It’s Ward 6 that I’d be running in, and I’d be taking on Ed Childers in the primary. No one has served as long as Childers on the Missoula City Council. 


It might be time he goes, and the reasons are plenty:

• We’re throwing money down the drain on the water lawsuit;
  

• Roads in Missoula are inexcusably terrible;
  

• Homeowners suffer under a huge property tax burden;
  

• Sidewalk costs are through the roof;
  

• The police haven’t had an adequate evidence room in ages;
  

• There’s a foul, unknown odor on the Northside of town;
  

• Missoula has not reclaimed its lost manufacturing base;
  

• Transients plague downtown.
  

I could go on, but I’ll save you the agony. 

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This race could be tough. Childers was first elected as Missoula Treasurer way back in 1985…when I was 4-years-old. That lasted for 12 years, until he got elected to the City Council, in 1997…when I was a sophomore at Helena High School.

Yeah, did I mention I’m not from Missoula? I figured it wasn’t important, since Ed isn’t either.

I did some research on Ed Childers to learn more about him. Personally, I find it odd that Childers has been an elected official for 30 years but there’s not one shred of evidence of how he financed his campaigns. I looked on VoteSmart…nothing. Nothing on the political practices page…I dunno, maybe those records were buried with Jimmy Hoffa.

One interesting thing I found was a 2007 complaint he filed against his opponent Lewie Schneller over a brochure. Here’s what that looks like:

Wow, pretty mundane and useless stuff, huh? And it was actually concluded…after 7 pages…that Schneller did in fact do something wrong.

I guess things like that are important. It’s a shame that Childers can’t spend his time better, however, like fixing our streets or not robbing our senior citizens of their livelihoods. But he’s a career politician, a perennial wallflower on the City Council.

Childers himself got a complaint in 1999, saying that he placed campaign signs too close to the polling place:

Much ado about nothing, if you ask me, but hey…campaign violations cut both ways, don’t they?

You can find all that stuff on the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices page for Ed Childers.

I don’t know much about Childers, and I just as easily could have run against Marilyn Marler, but Ed’s up this year and she’s not. 

Missoula City Council elections, 2015

What I do know is that Childers has been there for a long time, and he never votes against the mayor. I get emails every Monday showing how the City Council votes, and I’ve been getting those for months. I’ve been watching, waiting, and building my case. Now the time has come to unleash that case, and I’ll do that door-to-door with the voters of Ward 6.

Or will I? Ed Childers seems like a pretty nice guy when I see him at meetings. He thanks people for talking and he has a quiet way about him. He’d be damn-near impossible to beat.

Maybe I should move. I’ve been thinking about it, and we’ll get to that below. First, here’s the Missoula Ward Map:

Missoula City Council Ward Map for 2015 Elections

Wow, hard to tell what Missoula City Council Wards are what, huh? You can check out the ward map on the City Council’s site, and I had to zoom in to make sure I’m where I’m supposed to be.

After figuring out that I was in Ward 6 a few weeks back, I went ahead and filed a C-3 with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices:

Filing a C-3 allows you to raise political contributions

Doing that allowed me to start raising money. So how much did I raise? I raised $0, mainly because I didn’t try to raise any money. I’m still putting my toe in the water, still taking those baby steps. After all, filing for city council isn’t as affordable as filing for the legislature:

Cost to run for office in Missoula

Yeah, it costs $140 just to get your name on the ballot (up $6 from last time). It only cost me $15 for the legislature. I think that’s a real shame, and I wish someone in the legislature would introduce a bill in 2017 so that it’s easier for working schmucks like me to run for races that actually affect us.

Alright, alright…maybe $140 isn’t that much. Maybe I should just pay that myself. Those are both valid points, and I’m leaning that way. I figure, if I can pay the fee myself, them maybe I can raise some money.

Many experienced political pros would probably tell me I’m ass-backwards on that, and that’s fine. Remember, baby steps. 

So what’s my plan if I do file, if I do decide to run?

• First, send out letters to my ‘Christmas card’ list of campaign donors, the money men and women that make it all possible. 
  

• Then, I’ll open my campaign bank account and start my C-5;
  

• Next, after scraping together the $140 filing fee I’ll file for office.
  

• After that I’ll contact union printers here in Missoula and get walking cards made up.
  

• When that’s done I’ll get a new candidate name tag.
  

• Finally, I’ll pull out the walking maps I made when I ran for the legislature and start going door to door to tell people how bad Missoula’s current situation is, how much the Missoula City Council has contributed to that, and why Ed Childers is the main reason for every problem in their life.
  

That would be my plan. I wonder if others have a similar plan. After all, Michelle Cares has already filed to run for Ward 6 too. I met her at the Franklin to the Fort Neighborhood meeting. She’s a grant writer at the Dennis Washington Foundation and she did the same for the Missoula Children’s Theater. So she’s good at getting money from the feds – just what the Missoula City Council wants, as getting money from taxpayers is so unpopular.

So besides Childers I have this woman to contend with. My chances seem to have lessened considerably.

Sheesh, I better move! The good news is that I was thinking of doing just that. We want our son Paul to go to a certain school, and that’s Paxson.

Map of Missoula School Districts

Open Montana House Seats in 2016

That means we’d need to move to another area of town, which might put me in Ward 3 most likely, and then I’d have to go up against Alex Taft. I have until July 2 to file, which means if I did want to move, I’d have to do so soon. My current apartment lease ends on August 1, however. That means I’d have to pay rent on two places for at least a month.

Is any of this worth it? I think my talents would be better in the legislature, but there’s no open districts in Missoula in 2016 and too many incumbent Democrats that aren’t term-limited. In other words, if not the city council and not the legislature…it’s nothing.

Maybe that’s not so bad. Maybe I’m not politician material. Perhaps I shouldn’t waste my time with this stuff…leave it to lawyers and businessmen and other ‘important’ people.


I dunno, that’s pretty much the situation. I live in poverty and what could I possibly do to make the lives of those not living in poverty any better?

I don’t know, maybe this is all more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t have much money, I don’t have much experience and I don’t have a lot of desire, really. I mean, getting elected is hard, especially when you have no help. It’s an uphill battle and the payoffs are questionable, and not always good. Hell, maybe I should give up on all this and get a real job.

So that’s where I’m at with the Missoula City Council races, which opened yesterday and goes until July 2. Thanks for reading!

 

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