Missoula, Montana is to Big Sky Country what Austin is to Texas. A liberal anomaly surrounded by a sea of picturesque wilderness and conservative voters.
Knowing that it’s not surprising the city council approved nearly $70,000 for an array of porta potty shelters while slashing the police budget by just shy of $78,000.
Council members reportedly want a cultural shift to take hold in the city’s police department to facilitate more positive outcomes from interactions with law enforcement.
Whatever that means.
Per the Missoulian:
Other councilors also proposed failed amendments to the police department’s budget, including one from Julie Merritt who requested further cutting the department’s training request by an additional 50%. Councilor Heidi West also proposed rejecting the request for ballistic helmets, saying that she understood the need for the helmets but would like a clearer definition from the department on when police are able to use them. Both amendments failed.
Council also heard a new request for $50,000 for seed funding for a homeless navigation center, a program that would help adults who are experiencing homelessness transition to living in permanent housing. Eran Pehan, the city’s director of the Office of Housing and Community Development, said navigation centers in places like San Francisco have had a 46% success rate for people exiting those centers into permanent housing.
As some of Missoula’s residents protest police budget cuts, Democrat Kathleen Williams remains conspicuously quiet. Williams ran a competitive race against Republican Greg Gianforte to represent Montana’s at-large seat in the House of Representatives in 2018 and hopes to unseat him this year.
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When I saw porta-potties, I knew it wasn’t San Francisco.
No since them having Porta-Potties would make sense and Calipornia especially San Francisco is Nutsy’s district and TOTALLY SENSELESS.
Montana, damn I thought they were republicans. Guess they have pockets of idiots just like Texas does.
Missoula has been a socialist bastion at least since the early 60’s
Now talk about a bunch of chit!
With any luck the Governor is like the one in Texas and removes the Mayor and City Council’s police protection units to cover the cut. See how well they like being without the police as they doing to the people they work for.
It’s stupid to defund the police, but when i see 6 cruisers and 12 cops around one single car pulled over i wonder if maybe they are wasting a lot of money.
YOur remark is rather stupid.
Whenever you see an unnecessarily large group of workers at a job site where just a couple are needed you can pretty well be assured there’s a public labor union involved.
Or MAYBE saving YOUR butt from some terrorist action, YOU don’t really KNOW, RIGHT???
All police departments throughout the nation should be receiving more money and the officers should be all be receiving increases in their pay. The police are now and always have been our friends and helpers and during these times of lawlessness they are more important than ever. God Bless the Police!
Liberals seem to gravitate to public office, quite possibly because they are unable to get gainful employment from a business because that requires intelligence and accountability. A job lording over the citizens seems to be the pinnacle of their list of goals.
This is what happens when Californians move to other states and bring their BS with them. I have lived in Montana and all my in-laws are from there this is not how Montanans would vote. Nobody in Montana wants anymore of them there, they are a disease that ruins everything they touch.