Missoula Red Tape

Here’s Garfunkel and Oates with “Pregnant women are smug.” (They use the b word so don’t play it with your kids around. And be careful watching this if you’re drinking hot coffee ’cause it might shoot out your nose.)

A letter to the editor today alluded to the present culture of revering children, and it made me think of this piece.

So the letter to the editor? It says some adults are bringing noisy toddlers to the symphony. When other people are paying to listen to the music.

It’s from Sean Barker, and arts and entertainment reporter Joe Nickell has written the same in earlier stories about going to the symphony. This from part of Barker’s letter:

Why are there infants and young children at a symphony concert? I know baby sitters are expensive; so stay home. Your kid does not care that the violin cost $3.4 million, they certainly don’t care about how beautiful the music is and taking them to the symphony will not make them into geniuses. All it will do is diminish the listening experience for the rest of us and for you.

So next time, if you can’t get a sitter, consider staying home. Maybe tune in to some Garfunkel and Oates.

– Keila Szpaller

March 10th, 2010 | Tags: Garfunkel and Oates, Joe Nickell, Missoula City, Missoula symphony, Missoulian letters to the editor, Szpaller | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Last weekend, a friend of mine said she wants to rip out the grass in her boulevard this year and put in a garden. Maybe she’ll plant snap peas and I can snitch a couple when I stroll by. Yum.

I’ve seen other folks plant food in boulevards, too, and today this piece, “The grass is not greener, but that’s OK,”  reminded me to check out Missoula’s rules for boulevards.

Missoulians — and Greenough’ites and Arlee’ians — are fans of local food, but the rules aren’t  all that inspiring when it comes to growing, say, strawberries or chives. In the area between the street and the yard, the focus is more on mowing the lawn and creating a “park-like space.”

The boulevards chapter 12.48 of city code doesn’t prohibit veggies, but the landscaping standards call for grass and flowers and ornamental plants.

What about edible ones? Darn. Dandelions fall into that category, and if anyone has a goat I can borrow, I’ll be happy to feed it if the dandelions visit.

– Keila Szpaller

March 9th, 2010 | Tags: Landscaping, Missoula boulevards, Missoula City, Missoula gardens, Szpaller | Category: Gardens, Landscaping | Comments (3)

Why’d the Seattle Times interview Missoula firefighter Kory Burgess?

‘Cause Burgess, of the Missoula Rural Fire Department, won first place — again — in the annual Scott Firefighter Stairclimb in Seattle.

The event is a fundraiser for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and more than $500,000 has been raised this year so far, according to Stairclimb spokesman Mike McQuaid.

Missoula has done well in the event in recent history. This year, 1,555 firefighters from the U.S., Canada, Germany and New Zealand competed. Andy Drobeck, of the Missoula City Fire Department, captured second place. Missoula Rural Fire’s Doug Swain placed fourth. (Paul Kimball, of Spokane Valley Fire Department, came in third.)

The Montanans’ winning streak has caught the attention of folks like McQuaid.

“We’re looking at each other and saying, ‘What are they feeding those boys?’”

– Keila Szpaller

Photo: Courtesy of The Leukemia & Lymphona Society

March 8th, 2010 | Tags: Kory Burgess, Missoula City Fire Department, Missoula firefighters, Missoula Rural Fire Department, Scott Firefighter Stairclimb, Seattle stairclimb, Szpaller | Category: Fire Department | Comments (1)

I got a note from a reader and retired Macy’s employee noting the nonprofits Macy’s workers have donated to over the years with matches from the corporation:

Y.W.C.A., Watson Children’s Center, Mountain Home MT, the Poverello Center, Missoula Food Bank, United Way, Bowl for Kids’ Sake, and Relay For Life of Missoula are among them.

Today, there’s no more Macy’s in Missoula.

– Keila Szpaller
Photo: Linda Thompson

March 8th, 2010 | Tags: Missoula Food Bank, Missoula Macy's, Poverello Center, Szpaller | Category: Nonprofits | Comments (3)

That’s what Missoula Police Sgt. Richard Stepper predicts on the call for a downtown sleep-in tonight.

A flyer of sorts invites people to the southwest corner of Higgins and Broadway starting at 7 p.m. Stepper said no individual or organization is named as an organizer.

The posting calls for the event “to protest the criminalization of being homeless” in Missoula, Stepper said, reading from the flyer. It asks people to bring a sleeping bag if they’d like and also states “this is a sober event.”

“We honestly don’t anticipate any problems with it,” Stepper said. “Tonight is one of our overlap nights on Friday evening for swing shifts, so obviously we’ll have adequate resources if problems do arise.”

He said pedestrians must be allowed to get by, and with First Friday being tonight, there’s plenty of people wandering downtown for art and wine.

“As long as you allow passage of pedestrians, they have the same right as anyone else to use the sidewalk,” Stepper said.

Last year, new pedestrian interference rules took effect: They ban sitting, lying or sleeping within 12 feet of the entrance to a building. There’s no sleeping or lying in streets or alleys. Folks generally can’t leave less than six contiguous feet of right-of-way open on a 12-foot sidewalk – or less than 50 percent of a more narrow sidewalk.

So sleeping in some places on the sidewalk is OK, but bring a measuring tape.

– Keila Szpaller

March 5th, 2010 | Tags: Missoula City, Missoula sleep-in, Police Sgt. Richard Stepper, Szpaller | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (4)

Mayor John Engen said Missoula will indeed respond to Google with a proposal that this city be a test site for super-duper fast broadband networks.

“We need to keep swinging at the pitches,” Engen said.

He said this coming Tuesday he’ll visit with his staff about scheduling a community meeting in short order to get interested folks around the table — and hear as many ideas as possible to get a strong application out the door.

Engen said when the idea first arose, IT director Carl Horton told him it’d be great for Missoula to toss its name in the hat. He’s heard from a handful of other folks, but he said no campaign is necessary.

“We’re on it. It’s great.”

– Keila Szpaller

March 5th, 2010 | Tags: City of Missoula, Google, Mayor Engen, Mayor John Engen, Missoula, Missoula mayor John Engen, Szpaller | Category: Technology | Comments (8)

This morning, I opened a beautiful newsletter from Noteworthy Paper & Press, the downtown custom stationery and card shop. It started off like this:

Being located in downtown Missoula certainly has it’s ups and downs. While we love the foot traffic and our neighbors, it’s another story when certain individuals pee on the doorstep or throw eggs at our window! That said, we wouldn’t change our location for the world and we love visiting with our customers and waving at all the passers by.

This shop wins awards for its window displays (shamrocks last I saw), and right across the street, Macy’s didn’t agree to let Missoula retailers use its windows while the store is out of commission.

“They were not receptive,” said Rod Austin, of a contact in Cincinnati.

Austin, with the Missoula Business Improvement District, said downtown shop owners could create attractive window displays.

“We have retailers downtown that would fill those spaces up,” he said.

The Noteworthy newsletter also was a reminder that warm weather is creeping up on Missoula, and the season of downtown visitors is around the corner.

The Missoula City Council adopted some new rules last year to try to deal with downtowners who behave poorly. Austin said the police will begin enforcing the new rules early in the season to get people off on the right foot.

In part, the new rules prevent sitting or sleeping within 12 feet of the entrance to a building or in the streets or alleys.

It appears there’s a protest planned this evening, and pamphlets calling for a “sleep-in” are circulating downtown.

It’s First Friday … Art installation? Or sleep-in?

– Keila Szpaller

March 5th, 2010 | Tags: downtown Missoula, Missoula Business Improvement District, Missoula City Council, Missoula downtown, Noteworthy, Szpaller | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Some of Missoula’s technology-loving folks are pushing the mayor to throw in a bid to be a “Google Fiber for Communities” test site.

Above and below from Google:

Imagine sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web, and discussing a unique condition with a specialist in New York. Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Or collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3D video of a university lecture. Universal, ultra high-speed Internet access will make all this, and more possible.

Word from communications director Ginny Merriam is that Mayor John Engen is interested in the idea but there so far haven’t been plans to send in a proposal. More on Friday from the man himself.

Could it help spur along economic development? Hey, Google stimulus!

Deadline to turn in applications is March 26.

– Keila Szpaller

March 4th, 2010 | Tags: Google, high-speed Internet, John Engen, Mayor Engen, Mayor John Engen, Missoula, Missoula mayor, Szpaller | Category: Technology | Comments (3)

Happy birthday to WVE! That’s Women’s Voices for the Earth. To celebrate their 15th anniversary, they’re bringing a woman with a strong voice to Missoula.

Author and ecologist Dr. Sandra Steingraber lands here Friday for a screening of “Living Downstream,” a film based on her book. The story covers her fight with cancer and the silence around environmental connections to cancer.

Here’s an excerpt from an essay by Steingraber that ran in the May/June 2009 issue of Orion Magazine.

… in the same way, I look back on the life of Abraham Lincoln, whose portrait hangs in every schoolroom in Illinois, and marvel that our economy was once dependent on slave labor. Unthinkable. I believe our grandchildren will look back on us and marvel that our economy was once dependent on chemicals that were killing the planet and killing ourselves.

The screening is 7 p.m. Friday at the Wilma Theatre. Tickets cost $10 at the door and $8 in advance at Rockin Rudy’s.

Join WVE beforehand for a cocktail reception for $50 a ticket or $80 a pair through the group’s Web site. That’s 5:30 p.m. at Silk Road.

Oh, and the eight-armed sea creature? Steingraber wants ‘em around because her daughter wants to write a book about them. But that’s all in the essay, as is an interesting idea to bring pro-life and pro-choice folks together in the fight against harmful chemicals.

– Keila Szpaller

March 4th, 2010 | Tags: Living Downstream, Sandra Steingraber, Szpaller, Women's Voices for the Earth, WVE | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment