From one county to another: Learning together in Washington, D.C.

Last week the Missoula Board of County Commissioners traveled to Washington D.C. to join nearly 2,000 elected and appointed county government officials from across the country at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. 

The conference focused on federal policy issues that impact counties and was an opportunity for the commissioners to engage in policy and educational sessions. They interacted with federal officials and participated in congressional briefings and meetings, and they even heard from President Biden, who once served as a county leader. 

Not all counties operate the same way, and each are governed by different state statutes. In this episode, Commissioners Slotnick and Strohmaier share the importance of going to the NACo conference and learning interesting insights from other county leaders. They share new perspectives and exciting ideas they heard about housing in mountain communities; including the value in building diverse neighborhoods and the concept of using deed restrictions in Missoula County to help keep the cost of housing from escalating. And, for those who listen to the end, you’ll hear some exciting passenger rail news. 

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for your podcast recording support. 

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 0:11

Welcome back, everyone, to another edition of Tip of the Spear with your Missoula County commissioners, I'm Dave Strohmaier, here I have with me, Commissioner Josh Slotnick, Commissioner Juanita Vero is unable to join us today, but last week, the three of your commissioners, were in Washington, D.C., for the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. This is an annual event held in Washington. It's an opportunity to join in D.C. to hear from federal elected officials, folks with federal agencies, and also provide an opportunity for elected officials, particularly county elected officials, to interface with our members of Congress back in D.C., there's upwards of 2,000 folks who attend this conference, and it's just a great opportunity to network with our colleagues across the country. And this year we were treated to a speech by President Biden at the event. So, and Josh, you had to leave early.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 1:16

I had to leave early. Yeah, if I understand it, right? President Biden was once a county elected official.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 1:22

He was. He talked to us a little bit about his experience as a I believe he called it a county supervisor. But yeah, if ever there was someone in the the highest elected office in this country who understands county elected official perspectives and experience, it's our current president.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 1:43

That's great. Did he have any nuggets to share around being a county elected official?

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 1:49

Well, one of the the nuggets and in this kind of shades into current policy is empathy for the position that we're in, where there are federal dollars available and how often is it the case that we struggle with them getting diverted and hung up at the state level and haggling with state government not only here in Montana, but our colleagues across the country face a similar situation. He mentioned that specifically and was very cognizant of the importance of trying to get those dollars directly to local officials and local government. I've not heard anyone in the presidency articulate that, so that was super encouraging.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 2:33

Yeah, that's great to hear. I keep hearing this phrase when we talk about local government. That's where the rubber meets the road. We're actually the entities that spend the money to deliver these services. And if we don't have the money, we can't deliver the services. It was great to hear President Biden call that out as well,

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 2:48

Yeah, absolutely. We are the rubber and the road here and and we hear a lot about roads, among other things, and trying to get resources to help with transportation infrastructure. So Josh, I guess what what were some of the highlights for you? Was this the first time you'd been to one of these?

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 3:03

It was the first time I'd been to one and I can go off on highlights. One of the big ones for me was this. So you're sitting in a at a table or in an audience and realizing that everybody next to you does a similar job. They work for a county government somewhere else, too. And it was quite easy to start up a conversation kind of instantly, and it was great to to see the diversity of people. I mean, we live in a pretty white place. This was just the opposite, though all of humanity was represented and not just in how in in how people look, but also in the populations they represent and the types of places they represent, you know, deep urban to deep rural. And one one kind of take home from this was when I started chatting with people to realize how small our county is. Yeah. So for us, we're big, right? We're the, you know, the second biggest and not by much are we the second biggest and I might say the biggest in terms of being an economic powerhouse. Well, my chat with pretty much anybody else at this conference, they would say, how many people in your county, they're like, Oh, it's not that big, you know, for Georgia, it's like 1.2 million.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 4:09

That's over the entire state of Montana.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 4:11

I heard this over and over again. Everybody's county was huge, and other thing that was really different is that most of these other really large counties had a different government structure that looked much more like a city government, just larger, where there would be 11 or 13 or 15 county commissioners and their duties were entirely legislative. And then they hired a county manager or a county manager was elected. It was much more common to see this person hired and that person did. All the executive stuff, had direct reports, manage staff, etc, was the top of a pyramid. And the county commissioners would meet up once a week and have their meeting the way the city council has a meeting and they had committee meetings in between, but they didn't do anything executive. And when I reflect on our roles, it feels to me like 98% executive. We, our Legislature doesn't give us a lot of space to make laws or rules, and we can pass the parking resolution here, there. And that's very meaningful for the folks it affects. But it's pretty small in what we do. I feel like mostly what we do is work with staff to do programs to help them do their jobs, to get stuff done. That's how it feels to me like we actually accomplish things. And that was really different than most of the folks I interacted with.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 5:24

Yeah. Likewise, it really was all over the map in terms of the types of governments, the size and scale and scope of responsibilities involved. Because here for Montana, we actually had a pretty decent delegation. We did probably a dozen or so county commissioners and Montana Association of County Staff. It's all relative. We're as Missoula County considered urban in the state of Montana. But joining us on the trip were some really small rural counties in the state of Montana, and we talk about differences in responsibility. Some of these county commissioners from rural eastern Montana counties. They oversee entire departments, whereas

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 6:08

We oversee the department head.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 6:10

That's right. So I don't know that they're actually out there running the road graders themselves. But just by virtue of the smaller scale and the necessity to stretch resources, they're much more hands on than, say, we are or that some of these large urban counties would be across the nation.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 6:28

Yeah, for sure. And definitely very different spheres of concern. There is some commonality, but it's hard to find commonality. When I'd say our biggest issue facing our society here, I'm going to say, is housing. Yeah, and we're talking to someone in a small rural county and they don't have a housing issue. They're not. It's it's not. It's not part of their concern. If we talk about mental health and homelessness, it's not part of their concern. They have concerns of and that they have tons of miles of roads and very little resources to take care of those roads. They have concerns and that their schools are losing population and have to consolidate them, and students have to sit on buses for hours at a time. These aren't our concerns. It's not like it's impossible to find common ground, but it is a challenge. And in that space between us, I'm afraid, has landed a bunch of suspicion that you're not like us. You're something different. We've heard that you're you're not not positive, and there's some work to be done for us to bridge that, not just us, but everyone involved. And I could really feel that chatting with some of the other Meikle folks, they were totally civil and nice, but definitely some suspicion.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 7:38

Yeah. And I think as with so many things in life just being present with other folks, that's the answer. It's important sitting down and having meals with our fellow commissioners across the state.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 7:51

It was great and that is the answer. You recognize someone's humanity and then the suspicion starts to erode. But when we are literally, you know, eight hours apart or 400 miles apart or something, othering is quite easy to do.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 8:05

And you mentioned housing.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 8:06

Yeah.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 8:06

So, so one of the beauties of this of this gathering that we just attended was that we were able to interface with and rub shoulders with some, even though there's there's a whole range of of types of counties and local governments represented at this event, we came into contact with some very similar local governments and challenges, for instance, mountain communities and the challenges associated with housing. So.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 8:37

I'd say that was my favorite meeting. The conventional wisdom is the best conversations happen in the hallways that the sessions are kind of fine, but really the good stuff is in the hallways, and that's typically always true. I did actually go to one meeting where the best stuff was in the meeting, and it was called mountain towns and housing. Yeah, that that fits us and I wanted to. I've made some notes here because I wanted to pass on some of these takeaways. And these are what I'm going to mention. Here were similar between all the communities that presented, and there were folks there from places in California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, Wyoming as well as Jackson Hole. So we're we're we're in that, we're in that same group. Some of these take homes where, as one guy said, you're building housing, you're not making a labor camp for the ski area. I thought that was kind of a catchy way to phrase it. And basically what he meant when he unpacked it was the best sort of large scale developments are where there's a diversity of housing and there's all kinds of data out there that shows when folks who don't have a lot of money live next to people who have a little bit more money, they actually do better when we segregate by economics. We cement a caste system around economics, but when we blend, people seem to do better. So if in if you're going to create 300 units of housing, some of them need to be market rate. Some of them should be adjusted for people at 120% of the median wage. Some should be at 80%. So you get a blend and when then there's a blend. It seems to make everyone's life better, and you're also providing space for all the folks who need a place to live. What I heard in these mountain town situations was that it wasn't that there was no place for poor people to live. There is no place for people to live. And some of those folks poor coffee and make 18 bucks an hour, and some of them are physical therapists and make $40 an hour. It doesn't really matter if you don't have a place to live, you got to move somewhere else. So that was the first one when creating a large scale housing project. Diversity of housing next one. It turns out that a lot of people are losing bidding wars to cash buyers. Crazy, right, so a lot of these these places are creating mechanisms where a person can become a cash buyer for a couple of days. There's a way, a mechanism we can work it out with public support and a bank. So it's through partnerships. So for a little while, you have $500,000 in the bank. And then as soon as the deal is done, you become a contingency buyer again and it looks normal. But for a little while, you can compete with someone flying in from Connecticut who actually has $500,000 in cash. And this has made it possible for locals to be in a competition for buying housing.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 11:15

So unpack that a little. What does that look like? I'm looking for a place to buy.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 11:20

Ok, so let's so you go get pre-approved for a mortgage. So you're bankable. You are pre-approved. You are, you are set, you're pre-approved to borrow $400,000, let's say a $450,000. Through a partnership between a bank and the county.$450,000 is set up in an account for you. You can't sign off on it, you can only sign off on it if someone from the bank signed off on it. But when you go to put it in an offer, you can say cash and everybody signs off. You hand them the $450,000 in cash and immediately. As soon as the ink is dry, your loan from from 1st security actually kicks in and starts paying back the money that you borrowed.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 12:00

So you're not messing around with making an offer, then having to go back to the bank and and

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 12:04

For for a moment in time, you are a cash buyer. And this can be done through partnerships. So it would have to the full faith and credit of the county and a bank or two or three or four that want to participate. And this isn't a new thing that I'm making up here at this table. This was talked about in this meeting because otherwise locals, even who do have the money, are getting outbid by cash buyers from other places. So the next one and we're doing this one, which I'm excited about counties really inventorying all the land they own. Not so much so they can sell it all off, but maybe some of it, they can sell some of it they can partner with developers to because if the county owns the land, they can set the rules of how the development is going to be. So let's say we owned 10 acres of highly developable land that wasn't being used for something really wonderful right now. We could say to the developer, Great, you can have this land to develop it. We're going to hold title. You don't have to buy the land. You just saved x millions of dollars. But. Forty percent of the housing you build has to be set aside for people who are at 120% of area median income and 40% can be market rate and 20% has got to be for people who are really poor. And if we just took out the cost of buying the land, they could actually do that and possibly make a pencil out. But it first comes with that land inventory, which we are doing, which we are doing. Yes. Emily Brock and staff are deep into it. Then the last one and then I'll stop kind of getting along. And this is one that I know you've heard me go on and on about because this is my new favorite housing idea, and I'm going to try really hard to work with our staff and my fellow commissioners to create something like this here. This is the use of a deed restriction as a tool. So communities in Colorado that we're facing this issue where there was literally no housing for workers, apparently almost all at once in the town of Crested Butte, a handful of shops that were beloved in downtown all closed, not because they weren't selling their wares, but because no one could afford to work there, given that they had to travel from so far away. So folks in Crested Butte and shortly after in Vail came up with this idea. Here's how it goes. They would give you 10% of the value of your house today in cash, 10% of the appraised value and in trade you put a deed restriction on your house that limits who can purchase your house. So now the only folks eligible to purchase your house are people who work in Missoula County for 30 hours a week. One person in the household has to fit that they can. They can be two or three or four. As long as one person works 30 hours a week, this house is available for them to purchase. The guy who runs this program in Vail had the word to use where transformational. Now, Vail is very different from us. Very small, more geographically bounded population isn't even close to ours in terms of size, but because people were taking them up on this offer, housing was now available for locals to rent, not just to buy, but to rent. So, so

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 15:02

Did that also come with restrictions on how much you could then sell your property?

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 15:06

Great. Great question. That's super good. So other places have looked at this deed restriction tool as not so much as who's going to buy the house, but how much the house costs. So they would do something like this. And this is an idea I think we should look seriously at here. We offer a person 10% of the value of their home if their home is 120% of median home value. So if you live in a $2 million house up in the mountains, this doesn't qualify. It's got to be 120% of median, which is basically, we're going to say, an average house to a slightly above average house. We'd give you 10% of the value in trade. You put a deed restriction on that property that limits appreciation. That's how much the house goes up in value. Limits appreciation to 5% a year not compounded and not inflation, just 5% a year. So if we look historically at the last 11 years, this is according to Econ Northwest. I remember this right. Wages went up like close to 15% and cost of housing went up 109%, right? That doesn't work. Wages and housing should be rising at roughly the same level. Then people like folks at this table who have a regular job can buy a regular house. Well, if we cap appreciation to 5%, we brought down the rise in housing. So it is kind of commensurate with the rise in wages. So over time, that house that we put a 5% appreciation cap on five years from now, it only went up 25%. Well, five years from now, your wages could have gone up 25%. You could afford that house. And it's kind of a long game. The longer the time horizon, the more affordable the house comes costs. And one of the reasons I was so excited about this, I just said all these entities were doing it, which is kind of proof that it works, was that it costs so little to create a financially attainable house. So for 10% of the cost of a house we created attain ability over time. If we were to go build that house, we would we would pay 100% of the cost, right? So for a million dollars, you could do 20 houses. If you had a million dollars, you could build two. So that was one I heard a lot about, and I'm really excited about us pursuing two.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 17:14

Yeah, I was in that session also, and it was super exciting to hear some of the success stories in other communities still daunting. Knowing there's a huge challenge before us and some of the tools that other states have to generate. Revenue for programs like this are simply not available to us in Montana. So we're going to have to do a whole lot more to chew on this. But very true. But it's it's it's good to hear our, our colleagues and associates in other states and share their ideas.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 17:46

Yeah, it was. It was. It was inspiring. It also felt good to feel like we're not alone. Yeah. And and that, wow, this is a really broad scale problem. It isn't. It's not going to be solved in in one spot forever. Everybody's being afflicted.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 18:03

I mean, how often have we heard? From folks, as if Missoula County, the City of Missoula, is an anomaly, and it's because of owners regulations or whatnot that that we are like the only place on the planet that is suffering the challenges we are and and we aren't. I mean, there's other folks throughout, particularly the Rocky Mountain West, in these communities that have high, high density of amenities that attract folks. Because don't don't get me wrong, I don't think any of us want to see the days of teepee burners and and our beloved river in the center of our community seen as a as a landfill, a dumping ground, in which case, yeah, people won't be coming here and as great in numbers. But but the adverse effects of that are not anything we want to go back to either.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 18:59

No, I mean, we've really been the victims of our own success in this whole situation has been exacerbated by COVID. So now we're in a spot where anybody can live in Missoula and work anywhere for a long, long time. Anyone who has lived here for a long time would would would note this. You could choose to live here, but you'd be taking a pay cut. Yeah. And to some degree, that kept growth at a at a more modest level. Well, because of what's happened with COVID, you can work on the coasts, either coast and live in Missoula. Living in Missoula means you're at this wage structure that I just mentioned that you kind of eat that you don't take, you don't take high wages, you get to live here. Well, now you can work in Portland or San Francisco or anywhere on the East Coast and work off that wage scale, but live in Missoula and enough people are doing this. And it's not a bad thing. It's just part of life right now that this distorts our housing costs. So people who are living here but taking working off a wage scale that's much more robust have helped to drive the price of housing up. And the fact that anyone can do this has increased demand nationally. So now we're in this spot, we're attempting to address national demand with local supply, and people who work here on our wage scale are pitted against people who live here but work somewhere else. So we have to create some intervention. We have to intervene. And this is something that was a real take home message from this, this meeting that we went to, that if we don't intervene, the arc is absolutely predictable and we will end up where all these other places are, where a median house price in Jackson is over a million dollars. All right. That is where we are headed. There's probably no stopping that, but we have to create some intervention. So it's not that way for every person or for every house.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 20:51

Well, a couple other things that that I found pretty important and meaningful at the event, or one that there was a cluster of events surrounding the arts, arts and culture. So I serve on the National Association of Counties, Arts and Culture Commission. And there was one session that looked at arts as an economic driver, and it was great hearing from folks in Utah and Minnesota and the southeastern United States about how the arts are not just simply window dressing niceties that we can do without, but really are critical both economic driver in communities and also strike to the heart of what it means to live in a civil society. And I think there's lessons to be learned here, ways in which as we're thinking about infrastructure in our communities, the ways in which infrastructure can either unite or divide communities, and how can the arts play a role in helping cultures converge and and be celebrated that rich diversity in our community. So that's I think you might have been in one of those.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 22:03

Yeah, it was. It was a really inspiring one. And it made me feel great about Missoula and Missoula County because a lot of the things people are talking about, we're doing. Yes. So I was going off earlier today about the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. I mean, just this incredible artistic celebration. And in pre-COVID times, every theater is packed and you couldn't get a hotel room on Airbnb. I mean, this is a major economic driver. People come from all over the world for the Big Sky doc fest.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 22:29

Yeah, real. No. And then we are we are doing that and embodying that right here in Missoula, Montana. I agree. At this conference, we actually attended some meetings where they were meeting. You wanted to be in, but also a lot of good stuff happened out in the hallways or outside of the venue entirely, one of which was I had the opportunity. In fact, we all had the opportunity to meet with U.S. Senator Jon Tester. I also was able to meet with Senator Steve Daines with the Federal Railroad Administration because as. Folks might know Missoula County has really taken a leadership role and helping further the conversation to bring back passenger rail service to southern Montana. And it was super exciting meeting with Federal Railroad Administration officials and learning at that meeting that I had with him in Washington DC that this route right through Missoula County, the Old North Coast Hiawatha Route, which ran until 1979, will be a part of the nationwide study that's required by the bipartisan infrastructure law. Our route will be a part of that study to look at it as being potentially restored. So this is a big deal for the Missoula County, the state of Montana. And with so much dismal news that we live through every single day, it's nice to have some bright spots.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 23:55

Oh, congratulations. And if I remember, I said $15 million was allotted for that study.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 24:00

Yes, our very own senior senator, Jon Tester from Montana, was the sponsor of this language and successfully got $15 million allocated for this study. So. And it's not just a study. Once the study is completed, there are real dollars in the infrastructure law that will help with project implementation. And if all of that's not enough outside of the venue of the conference, we had a chance to meet with the director of the Bureau of Land Management. That was a real highlight to who just so happens to be Missoula. Our friend Tracy St.. So it's it's great to be able to have Montana so well represented at some of the highest levels of the administration.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 24:41

Yeah, that we're in a really good spot that way. And I have to say I wasn't able to meet with Senator Daines. I had to leave the day earlier. I'm sure you guys had a good meeting, but we were received so well by Senator Tester, who gave us an hour of his time, had staff in the room writing things down. I felt like we were treated really well and made me feel like somebody is looking out for us. Yeah.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 24:59

Both of our U.S. senators were very gracious and it's great to see them carve out time for their constituents. So I mean, we could go on for quite some time, probably, but I think for me, at least. Suffice it to say, if folks are wondering what the county commission is doing flying off to Washington, D.C., it wasn't just some junket. It was an opportunity to to spend time with colleagues across the country to learn from them and bring those ideas back here to see what we can implement. Well said. Well, with that, we'll see at the next Tip of the Spear, everyone.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 25:40

Thanks for listening.