Latest Best Place

The Sunday Missoulian gave an update on Mayor Engen's economic development effort, "the Best Place Project." The second sentence in the piece by Keila Szpaller anticipates the skeptics weighing in on the deal which, this being Missoula, is hardly news. Recently the community has received a bushel basket of studies (Fairgrounds, Downtown Master Plan, Events Center, etc.)all funded by Missoula and performed by out of town experts. Doing studies for Missoula is kind of a cottage industry, except that most of the cottages are in Portland or other cities.

The Best Place Project is going to be, first, studied by Garner Economics in their cottage in Atlanta, Georgia. The article mentions how Missoula will be put under the magnifying glass to identify "the good, the bad and the ugly." (I hope I don't end up in either of the last two categories, but I can't say how good the magnifying glass is.). The second part of the effort is a study by National Economic Development Services (also from a cottage in Atlanta, Georgia, since no one on this side of the continent understands Missoula and economic development like folks from the Peach Tree State)who will interview 50 key community decision-makers to see if Missoula really wants and will invest in economic development. Fifty opinions sounds about right for Missoula, if they are all different.

The cost of this study phase Garner and NCDS (hey, you pick a bureaucratic name for your firm, you are just asking for an acronym--I don't make up these rules.) are undertaking is for a modest $30,000 which is cheap by recent study costs. It's especially cheap when you figure that one or two round trip plane tickets and some hotel stays and meals will run around--what?--$500-600 minimum? If a team of two--which is a the craziest minimum a study like this needs--comes to Missoula from Atlanta for a minimum of two visits--one to wield the magnifying glass and one to report, that's at least a couple grand spent already. Now, the Mayor may be able to put the arm on the hotels or use City frequent flyer miles to get some of these costs comped, but this is still one very modest--some might say cheap--undertaking.

One of the reason it will be cheap, I suppose, is that the consultants will be reporting what past consultants have said before in past studies Missoula has paid for. Since it will be familiar to us, we won't be shocked:

"Spending money on studies like this isn't a cost, it's an investment."
"Economic development has no quick fix--it is a long term commitment."
"It takes money to make money."
"The public and the private sector have to work together if we want economic investment."
"Missoula's rank divisiveness needs to be fixed if we want to have economic development."
"Missoula should make better use of the research and development energy at the University of Montana."
"Missoula is a place of beauty with great schools--that's what businesses looking to invest in are looking for(ditto for our educated and loyal work force, parks, proximity to Glacier, Flathead and Yellowstone Park, relative low crime rate, good airport, Interstate, rail connection, etc.)."
"There are pockets of impressive and unique brilliance in Missoula that no one knows about--make them your strengths!"

The article reports that the public sector skin in this game comes in the form of $5,000 from MRA. The rest comes from the private sector which includes $5,0000 from the University of Montana (apparently privatized when I wasn't looking but perhaps finally owning up to being Griz, Incorporated.), St. Patrick Hospital, NorthWestern Energy, First Security Bank, and Washington Corporations. Even before the studies are begun, our consultants are saying Missoula needs to have $600,000 to nearly a million dollars a year to get into the economic development game in a serious productive way.
(If their study ends up saying "With a million dollars a year, the Missoula community could create 25 jobs each year at $40,000 annual salary," I am getting myself in the economic development study game.).

So, what will the skeptics the Missoulian reporter identified be saying?

"We need an outside perspective from far away because we are too close to our own problems to understand them."

"Thank goodness Missoula is doing another economic development study. The three or four that we got since the mid '80's seemed to have worked out pretty well."

"Good thing we waited until at least a year after the economy was in the tank to start our economic development strategizing. What if the disasters that showed up on Wall Street and in the National economy in 2007 and 2008 weren't as bad as some people said they were going to be?" Now we're absolutely sure.

"Who could have known Missoula--as the Mayor observed--"doesn't have enough outside sales?" All the stuff we make here in the Missoula Valley is just stacking up in warehouses, I guess, because we lack a crack marketing and sales department.

"MAEDC stands for Missoula Area Economic Development Corporation. And what do they do again?"

Look, I know things in our local economy stink. For the most part, it's largely not a locally-based problem. Yes, there are local systemic problems--anyone who has attended any of the one million economic outlook presentations given by Larry Swanson of the UM O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in the past 10 years knows that.

And it's not that we are such a divisive community. We disagree about lots of things. Except for inartful and demonizing way viewpoints are typically expressed, the disagreements are good for us. What we need to get our heads around is how to fight fairly and to recognize when we have won or lost the argument about an issue and still treat the other side like a neighbor. We need someone writing newspaper editorials like Sam Reynolds did.

My skeptical take is that we have enough smart, energetic, experienced and connected people in Missoula to fix what can be fixed with our economy. What can be fixed should have been fixed, however, by those paid to keep it fixed, and where is the accountability for that? What we lack in my opinion is homegrown vision and leadership and accountability to put it all together. That has been the problem with almost every study we do.

Some fairly influential people have put their (and our)money and their reputations behind this enterprise. They think--no, believe--we will get something different or better than what we have gotten before. That's a relief.

Righteousness FAIL

This week's drama in our community involved a story that was fueled by astonishingly obscene self-righteous puffery. The quickness with which people embraced the sanctimonious high ground was beyond believing. This is about the animal abuse turned suicide of Gary Bassett.

It really is a question of scale, I guess. Innocent kitten abused. Mentally ill Viet Nam era military vet unable to get the care needed to keep him functioning near normal. Out-raged animal lovers expressing their indignant brand of compassion calling for sick military veteran to die and rot in hell. Abused kitten story captures the front page of the daily newspaper for three or four days straight. Public comments from law enforcement officials that felony indictments are being prepared. Community compassion results in generous outpouring of cash to make sure the cat gets taken care of. Cat dies in spite of heroic pet life flight to Seattle [?] for the best pet care money can buy.

Veteran kills himself as police seek to serve arrest warrant.



I hate animal abuse as much or more than the next person--it is stupid and cruel. Usually animal abusers are small-minded, insensitive people. Sometimes civil or criminal consequences can get their attention and change their behavior. Occasionally, like Gary Bassett, they can also be ravaged by demons or pain that twist life rhythms so grotesquely that cruelty fails to register as anything at all.

If the abuse is a symptom of something wrong on a deeper level, though, bringing a hammer to fix a screw that's loose will usually end in disaster. It is important, then, before the shallow chivalry of animal rights condemnation kicks in, to discern what is going on. Taking half a dozen reflective breaths and asking oneself, "Now why would anyone abuse a cat he had rescued from a shelter and loved as a pet for a year or so?" That seems to be an important step before publicly saying about the person "you should die and rot in hell." Otherwise, one can end up winning the Jackass of the Week Award.

Looking back, at what point could anyone have done anything differently, said things differently, changed an attitude, yearned harder for forgiveness and compassion, reached out a helping hand, suspected that it wasn’t just the victimized kitten who needed help?

Don’t look at me—I was a bewildered bystander who didn’t do anything. Now I am imagining this guy’s last hour and feeling what it must have been like to see the vast tunnel of his life's possibilities shrink to the pinprick of suicide.

Something went terribly wrong in this deal.

Grinding out the Yards

Does the measure of misery in the world ever appreciably go up or down? A girlfriend from long, long ago observed to me, 'no matter who you are or your station in the world, there is always going to be someone who is better off and someone who is worse off than you are.' Not too profound, but compelling. If we are tempted to compare our lot with others, it is clear no one is in the absolute end of the scale, you can be sure of that. Remember that the next time you think life has dealt you a bad hand--and think about the poor bastard who has it worse than you do.

The misery in Haiti is deep-rooted. If anyone there thought they had it bad before, nothing like an earthquake and buildings crashing on the head to re-focus the degree of misery one can experience. So, the dead are dead, and many of the living will not survive. Most will be missed, many will be mourned, but it will be hard to find anyone who has a corner on loss. But the real challenge will be how the survivors, the ones with wounds and scars handle things. No one has any reason to believe their world will be 'fixed' by others. There is simply not enough aid in the world to bring Haiti back to where it was, including to what appears to be a relatively 'better' level of misery. What will those people do? How will they find joy? How will they sleep peacefully? When will they feel like bringing new children into the world? How long before they will want to make love tenderly with someone they hold dear?

That's a Relief

Fear, ignorance, illusion, deception--all these things diminish the quality of our lives. Alone, or compounded together, or experienced in serial fashion, any one of them can make us feel something that is not genuine. Worse, they can prompt us to actions that are destructive, hurtful, stupid or wasteful. It is better to combat these forces through inquiry, dialog, reflection and learning than to subject ourselves to them. It is better to know. In truth, it is a relief to know.

I am subject to all these things from time to time. Sometimes I replace one with another or go back and forth. Sometimes the truth has a hard time getting in or staying. Still, looking for the truth is something we do for the sake of the truth. Not simply to be "right," but to live well. When and if I blog here it will be to seek or share some relief that comes from the truth.