Former Missoula Councilor Vindicated After “Sleepy Inn” Pandemic Boondoggle

From the Missoula Current in 2020, “Council member Jesse Ramos led the opposition [to the purchase of the Sleepy Inn Motel] by disputing the recommendations of trained health officials, saying the shelter wasn’t necessary, was too expensive, and the pandemic would soon pass. At the end of the night, he tipped his hat to his opponents and said history would decide who was right.”

This was the entire narrative in 2020: if you opposed the government using the pandemic as an excuse to seize power, you were “anti-science.”

The City of Missoula is now attempting to sell the Sleepy Inn Motel, a property it purchased for $1.1 million at the beginning of the pandemic, at a $200,000 loss. The City is also now fully admitting the property is a liability in a booming real estate market, requiring the purchaser to pay for tear down and asbestos remediation. The motel allegedly housed 590 people.

In what world was paying twice the asking price for a run-down motel in the middle of a pandemic to house folks in an asbestos-ridden hell-hole a good idea?

Need I remind everyone that the city was already getting fully paid by the federal government, per-person per-night, and could have instead housed these poor folks at a nice hotel instead of forming a hair-brained scheme to use a pandemic as an excuse to grab something they always want more of… power and control?

What is even more disappointing (but unsurprising, despite voicing my dozens of concerns and the city not being able to address any of them, and nearly all of them coming to fruition today) the motion to purchase the property passed in a completely partisan 9-3 vote.

The City does not even have the excuse that they were not warned.

For the record, here were my top twenty reasons at the time for not purchasing the $1.1 million taxpayer boondoggle:

My Top 20 reasons why the council needs to vote this down

1. This does not help our struggling homeless community despite “sounding good” for future political campaigns.
2. The ongoing and future costs of this purchase are unknown to the taxpayer, but this purchase blindly obligates them to pay for it.
3. There is no appraisal on the property. Would you ever buy a home or business without an appraisal?
4. The city has not made available tax returns nor income statements of the property.
5. The hotel was for sale 3 years ago for $675,000 and went unsold. Now the taxpayers are expected to pay nearly double that. If we were getting such a good deal someone would buy it out from under us.
6. Hotels right now are empty and will be experiencing historical revenue drops. Because of COVID, this makes them cheaper, not more expensive.
7. Hotels in NW Montana sell for roughly 2.8 – 3.1 times their GROSS revenue. Sleepy Inn’s last known revenue was $240,000 in 2013. And then capital improvements are subtracted from that. The inspection reports are atrocious.
8. The going land price is $22/sqft for that area and we are buying it as an eventual tear down. The city is paying $44/sqft BEFORE demolition costs.
9. The building will have to be torn down, costing an additional $125k-300k before it can be safely used by our homeless community.
10. The buy-sell agreement was signed on March 10th, long before the public knew about it (contingent on council approval).
11. This is using tax-increment financing (TIF) dollars which, by state law, is supposed to be used to eliminate blight, not buy it.
12. The city has wanted to buy this property for years and COVID is merely the crisis they are trying to take advantage of to make it happen.
13. Not one person has showed we need the space given very low number of cases, tons of room in the hospitals, and the ability to lease hotel rooms if needed as the majority of hotels are empty.
14. The hospital occupancy rates are very low right now and there is plenty of room. We could also lease rooms as needed like almost every other major city in NEED of the space.
15. COVID cases are under 40 in all of Missoula.
16. The city can’t even manage its own business (police, fire, roads). We don’t need to purchase a hotel.
17. There are numerous reports of methamphetamine usage/contamination. There is almost guaranteed to be asbestos contamination. Both incredibly expensive to remediate.
18. This will take $13k off the tax roles annually.
19. FEMA will not reimburse ANY of the purchase price of the hotel only expenses to operate it.
20. Look at the past several projects the city has done and ask yourself if ANY of them turned out the way they thought or said they would: Mountain water legal bills thought to be $400k today are over $16 million, Allegiance Park, Broadway Island, the bridge over reserve street… you get the picture. We know this will cost well over $1.1 Million in the end.