What happens when you call 9-1-1? Why does the person on the other line ask so many questions? April 9-15 is Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, an opportunity to recognize and thank the 9-1-1 dispatchers who work around the clock every day as the first point of emergency response.
This week, Commissioner Strohmaier and a special guest host sat down with Sherri Odlin, 9-1-1 manager, and Adriane Beck, director of the Office of Emergency Management, to talk about what it’s like dispatching 9-1-1 calls, how technology has changed this process and their most memorable calls.
Missoula County is hiring Public Safety Communications Officers! Click here to see the full job description.
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!
What happens when you call 9-1-1? Why does the person on the other line ask so many questions? April 9-15 is Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, an opportunity to recognize and thank the 9-1-1 dispatchers who work around the clock every day as the first point of emergency response.
This week, Commissioner Strohmaier and a special guest host sat down with Sherri Odlin, 9-1-1 manager, and Adriane Beck, director of the Office of Emergency Management, to talk about what it’s like dispatching 9-1-1 calls, how technology has changed this process and their most memorable calls.
Missoula County is hiring Public Safety Communications Officers! Click here to see the full job description.
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!
Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:10] Well, welcome back, everyone, to Tip of the Spear with your Missoula County commissioners, or as today is the case, commissioner. Both Commissioner Josh Slotnick and Vero are not able to join us today. So again, I'm Dave and I am joined here by three special guests. We have Chris Lounsbury, our Chief Administrative Officer for Missoula County. And I believe this is your first-ever participation in one of these, is that correct?
Chris Lounsbury: [00:00:38] It's my first time co-hosting. I got to be on here one time as a guest.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:40] Okay, So you are first time.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:00:42] I'm looking forward to it.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:43] Yeah. Excellent. And we also are joined today pleased to have with us Sherry Odland, the 911 manager for Missoula County, and Adriane Beck, director of the Office of Emergency Management. Thank you all for joining us. And to my co-host today, Chris Lounsbury. I think there's some synergy with this topic, which is all things 911 today and maybe your past career path or experience. Chris, do you want to tell us a little bit about your background?
Chris Lounsbury: [00:01:10] You bet. Thanks, Dave. Yes, I had the great opportunity of starting as a Missoula County 911 dispatcher When I got out of college way back in the 90s, which seems a very long time ago now, and then had the great opportunity of working in the center, both as a dispatcher and as a technology person for a little while, and then working in the role that Adrian now does for us, working on disasters and emergency services. So I'm looking forward to our conversation today and a chance to hear about all the cool things that have happened over the last almost 25 years since I started at the county.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:01:40] Thanks and glad to have you with us, Chris. Let's start with Sherri. You're a new face to these little gatherings that we have. And could you just tell us a little bit about your background and current role with 911?
Sherri Odlin: [00:01:55] Sure. I also started out as a dispatcher 28 years ago. Yeah, I'd never done anything like this before. I just saw an advertisement for it, thought it sounded interesting, started and never thought I'd be here this long. Love dispatching. It's one of my favorite things I've ever done in a job. It's very fulfilling. It's heartbreaking. It's all the things. And yeah, I just, you know, I don't know that I was ready for the position I got into. I got to be one of the assistant managers a while back and Chris said I was ready. And I, uh, I took that leap. One of the reasons I did want to do the position was just to be that voice for the dispatchers that are working in the center and be there for them and support them in what they're doing. And that's still why I'm doing the position now. That's what I want to do, is support them and help them get through all of this. And they do a wonderful job and I want to back them 100%.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:02:49] Well, it sounds like even though you might not have felt ready eventually, you are ready now.
Sherri Odlin: [00:02:53] I... Most days I can.
Adriane Beck: [00:02:56] And I can absolutely speak to that and that we are so blessed and fortunate to have Sherri as the as the center manager and not only her experience with being a dispatcher, but also the leadership and passion that she provides to the dispatchers and to the profession as a whole is just phenomenal.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:11] And Adriane, for guests who might not be familiar with who you are, maybe a little bit of a recap. Refresh my memory. Did you serve once as a 911 dispatcher also?
Adriane Beck: [00:03:22] I did not.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:23] You did not?
Adriane Beck: [00:03:24] I did not, no. So currently, as the director for the Office of Emergency Management, two divisions. One is the 911 public safety answering point, and then the other is disaster and emergency services. I came to the county from a background in fire and always had a respect and appreciation for the work that 911 dispatchers do, certainly as a responder and the information that they provided to us. But it wasn't until I came to work for the county, until I got into this position how much I appreciated the work that they do, the complexities of the job and how seriously they take their role in providing not only kind of that excellent initial customer service for that person who's calling 911, being that first first responder to get all that pertinent critical information, but then also the ownership that they have to those responders that they're dispatching out into the field and, you know, the sense of protection that they have for them to make sure that they're providing them with all of the information that they need, not only to be safe, but to be successful in resolving that call. And so I can safely say between Chris and Sherri that I am not equipped to be a 911 dispatcher, The level of multitasking that they do, the quick decisions that they make in these, you know, seconds count situations is just not something I was ever equipped to do.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:04:37] Well, I'm not sure I quite believe that.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:04:39] But so, Chris, with your experience in 911, what do you think our listeners out there would love to know from our two special guests here and how probing can you get with your questions?
Chris Lounsbury: [00:04:53] Oh, we can definitely get probing, but I think the thing that most people probably wonder is why when they call 911, so many questions get asked for them. Because when you...
Dave Strohmaier: [00:05:02] It can be so annoying!
Chris Lounsbury: [00:05:02] It really can be and it can be really frustrating What they folks don't on the other end don't recognize is that there's more than one person working at the 911 center. So I bet Sherry could tell us why they asked so many questions and what's happening in the background.
Sherri Odlin: [00:05:15] You bet. That is the main question I get no matter where I go. And and when people start talking about 911, as you ask so many questions and we ask those questions for the responders, first off, it's the questions they need to go to get there safely, whether that be law enforcement, fire, EMS, it doesn't matter. They need these questions answered to get there safe and to prepare for what they're going to. In our center, we have four people working at all times. So if I'm the call taker that day, I'm taking the call, I'm getting the information, I'm putting it into the computer. And as I'm doing that, there's another person in the room that that's all they're doing is dispatching like Missoula Police Department. At the same time that I'm getting the information, they're dispatching those officers out. Same with fire and medical. If I'm taking a medical call, there is another person separate that is just dispatching fire and medical as I'm getting the information. They're dispatching out those responders to those calls. So all the questions we're asking are not delaying any type of response. We're just trying to get as much information as we can.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:06:10] Yeah, that's great. And I bet Adriane may be putting you on the spot just a little bit. How important is some of that information, having been a first responder as a firefighter and an EMT, when you're headed into the scene?
Adriane Beck: [00:06:20] Well, information is power in those types of situations. It helps you not only mentally prepare for what you may encounter when you arrive on scene, but it also helps you amass the appropriate resources on the front end. And, you know, in any kind of an emergency seconds matter. And so the information that we're given at the time of dispatch helps with those initial decision making criteria, helps kind of set that call up for success. And in a situation where that information maybe isn't readily available at the time of dispatch, unfortunately, the first responders are then pestering dispatch to either call the person back or try to get additional information because we've become so accustomed to having just a whole wealth of information and narrative on that call while in route that when it's not there, they feel pretty deprived and are calling back to get it.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:07:09] So I'm going to ask a little bit of a loaded question here. And it's based on a recent experience I had where I actually called 911 about a week ago. I bet there's a hesitancy on some people's parts to dial 911 when something's happening that they think is illegal or shouldn't be happening. And I even felt it before I made my call, which I'll spill the beans: I received a report from someone that the Beartracks Bridge signs had been vandalized. So I went down there and checked it out and indeed they had been. So I called 911. But there's always a moment, I think, when folks may be of the opinion "nobody's getting assaulted. It's this isn't that serious. I shouldn't be taking up the the phone lines with my call. Want to reserve that for a true emergency." And then what may happen is nobody ever eventually does get notified or it's not timely because they're wanting to wait till regular work hours to dial in. Talk a little bit about when folks ought to call 911.
Sherri Odlin: [00:08:18] What you're saying is so true. And we take emergent and non-emergent calls. We just have to triage those calls. And I think a big thing that people don't understand is we have to put you on hold. You know, like I said, right now, we have four, four people working at all times, but that's one person answering nine. One calls for all of Missoula County. And that can be a lot. Sometimes we answer the phone: "911 What's the location of your emergency?" Because we want to know where you're at. Because if we know where you're at, we can send help. If we don't, we can't. So that's why we answer the phone. That way we don't answer the phone: "911. Is this an emergency?" We try not to because just what you said, you know, it's not an emergency, but I have personally had a lady call and say it's not an emergency. I was really early on in my career. I took that verbatim, put her on hold, answered another call, and got back to her fairly quickly. But her husband was having a medical problem. And so that taught me very quickly why we don't answer the phone that way, because, again, it's not up to that person whether it's an emergency or not. It's up to us. And so just realize that you should call in anything that just like you did. That's a that is a good reason to call. But as long as the callers understand that, we may have to put you on hold to take another call, that might be a medical call that we have to get going and get back to you. But we want people to call because like you said, if if you don't call when you're thinking about it, people may never call because. Oh, I thought somebody for sure already reported this.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:09:39] And I've also heard that creates a record of a type of incident where if it's not filtered through 911, sometime down the road, we're trying to get a handle on how often X, Y, or Z happens and there's no record of it. Well, we don't know. But if it is reported through 911, we can at least have some sense that, yeah, there's a lot of folks reporting this.
Sherri Odlin: [00:10:01] Yeah, exactly.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:10:03] Yeah. I mean, that's a great point. And to follow up a little bit on what you were saying, Dave, you know, Sherri mentioned the other piece that they're always looking for is that location piece. And I think a lot of times callers think that when you call 911, we're going to know exactly where you are. And technology has definitely gotten better than when I was there, when I was there. The closest we could get was within a football field, which basically meant if you were standing on, you know, let's say at Higgins and Broadway, you were somewhere between the river and in the mountains behind us. Right. So not very close. Not very accurate. But, Sherry, how much better has it gotten and why do we still need that information?
Sherri Odlin: [00:10:38] It is. It's so much better. We can get it down to like a few feet. But even though we can get that, most of the time, we're always still going to ask for an address because things can be wrong. And so we just always are going to verify that address with the caller no matter what, even though it has gotten better and it's continuing to get better. And we're so happy about that because there are some times that people call and they can't give a location. And so with this, we can at least get people rolling that way. And as we're still trying to figure out what the issue is, what the what the problem is there, so it's gotten within usually a few feet, sometimes not quite that close, but it's it's come a long way.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:16] Sherri, what did dispatching look like 28 years ago or the technology of it? I'm sure we'd progressed beyond tin cans and strings by then...
Adriane Beck: [00:11:28] A little bit. That's the fallback.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:29] But after nearly 30 years, three decades, I'm assuming that there have been changes.
Sherri Odlin: [00:11:35] There's been a lot of changes. I think they just keep getting better. You know, Chris was just talking about the location has always been the biggest thing. If you can't have your location, we can't send people. And in those days back 20 some years ago, if people couldn't tell us where they were at, we really had no idea. You know, I mean, again, even even if we got close to Higgins and Broadway, how many buildings and how many floors in each building are right in that area? It was almost impossible to help people that way. You know, texting 911 has brought us forward a lot to for people to be able to text, to say, 'I'm in this bad situation, I can't call, but I need help". And the person they're with maybe is just thinking they're texting a friend or whatever the case may be. But they're texting us and we're getting help sent that way. Just like if they had called 901.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:12:21] I had not even thought of texting 911.
Sherri Odlin: [00:12:24] Yeah, it's wonderful. It is. It's a good resource. When you initially text 911, you will get a message that goes back that asks if you can call 911, because truly we would still like to speak to the person on the other end of the phone. And sometimes it's just like, oh my gosh, no, I didn't know you had it. I was just trying this out. And then other times it's, you know, "I'm in a bad situation and I can't call because of somebody in the room with me." And that's perfectly fine. We'll take the information just like we're talking to you on the phone.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:12:50] You've got the ability now to get text to 911, which certainly wasn't there when I was a dispatcher. We were still primarily a landline society back then, back in those days. But is there a way now for you guys to be able to notify citizens when something might be happening in their area? And is there anything folks need to do to be able to get those messages?
Adriane Beck: [00:13:07] I'll take this one and then I'll let Sherri pepper in some additional details here. But so, yeah, here in Missoula County, we use a technology called Smart 911, which is a part of rave mobile safety. It's our mass notification tool that enables us to send a whole variety of different types of alerts at the lowest level, someone can go in and create their own individual safety profile, which is essentially linking their cell phones, their landline phones to their address, which then allows us to send very specific and geo-targeted information to individuals based on that profile. So if you think about a situation where there might be a law enforcement incident occurring in your neighborhood and we want people to just stay indoors, lock their doors, stay inside, we can send that alert down to that neighborhood level with the pertinent information that they need. The system also enables us to escalate alerts that may be more severe. Anyone who's ever received an Amber Alert on their cell phone knows what I'm talking about. This same system will allow us to essentially force those alerts onto individual cell phones in the attempt to notify them of something that is extremely hazardous. There's a criteria that we have to meet a threshold of information and imminence that has to be there in order for us to push those highest levels of alerts. But the ability to was once referred to as Chris will remember this. So Sherri, of course, but reverse 911, which was tied to landline phones, which were required to be associated with a physical address. So it essentially allowed us to do that. But as technology has changed, as personal preferences have changed and people no longer have landlines with the regularity that they used to, technology has had to adapt to allow for cell phones to then be manually entered into the system.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:14:47] So after all of these years, surely there have been situations that you've encountered that stick out in your memory over that time frame for good or for ill? And Sherry, are there any specific stories or experiences you've had as a dispatcher that come to mind?
Sherri Odlin: [00:15:07] Working a night shift, I don't remember the hours, but it was a night shift that we were working. And we got a report of a strange noise coming out of a dumpster. A person thought it was probably a puppy in the dumpster. And...
Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:19] And so they called before looking.
Sherri Odlin: [00:15:22] Yes.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:22] Okay. They heard a noise and they...
Sherri Odlin: [00:15:24] They thought it was odd. And I think they tried to look, but it was really dark and stuff and they couldn't really see. And we got officers over there. It was kind of one of those, oh, it's, you know, not that big of a call. It was a baby in the dumpster. Holy smokes. And that still sticks out in my mind. I mean, that was a wonderful moment at that point. Finally, where the officers got there, EMS got there and checked the baby out, got her to the hospital, and the baby was fine.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:49] Probably one of these instances where someone otherwise might think, "you know what, this is not a emergency. I hear an annoying noise out in the alley or the dumpster." But clearly it...
Sherri Odlin: [00:16:00] It was much, much more. Yeah, we felt that way, too. You know, it was probably some sort of animal in there, raccoon or, you know, something in the dumpster. But. But everybody took it seriously. Everybody went and did their job. And it was a good outcome because she was fine. And that was that was a good moment for us. I mean, we that was quite a up and down, you know, with emotions and everything for that call. That lasted quite a while and so many different people involved. That's a really good one that I still remember. Yeah. Wow.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:16:30] Yeah. Adriane, Anything I mean, in your role, even though you were have not been a 911 dispatcher yourself, you've certainly been in the in the mix.
Adriane Beck: [00:16:40] Sure. [00:16:41] I can't describe for you what it's like to walk into the center when something big is happening and something big. Could be three vehicle accident at Mullan and Reserve and just the synergy that exists between all of the individuals working different components of the entire 911 system, whether they're the call taker or whether they're sitting the fire medical dispatch or law enforcement with either the sheriff or the police department, the collaboration and just how well they work together so seamlessly to get really good situational awareness about what's going on and making sure that their feedback loop from both responders as well as the 911 callers paints a really great picture for me. [00:17:19] What's always incredible to witness and I say witness because I've never had to sit in the hot seat for these, but when you walk in and the the call taker is is taking a real severe medical call and coaching someone through CPR when they get a save from that, it's it's incredible to see. It's incredible to see the pride of those dispatchers. But also, you know, when you hear the other end of the line just being so thankful for someone, staying with them and providing that medical instruction while they're waiting for responders to show up, is it's really something to see.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:17:53] Absolutely. I think that's all true. And I think the other piece that really goes around that and I think it's just as true today as it was when I was there, is that dispatch, like most first responder agencies, really is a big family and you really do all pull, you know, when you're sitting at a different position and you hear the call taker on those calls, you really are pulling for them. And the person on the other line, it's a tremendous sense of satisfaction that you get from working in that kind of environment and on that kind of team. I think that is unique to that. Not really a great segue, but a segue. So knowing that they're really tough jobs, what are some of the things you guys do to to help dispatchers through those really hard calls and those things? And then also thinking about that for folks who might be listening, who think, wow, this sounds like a really interesting job. What are the kinds of skills that somebody needs to be able to do that kind of work?
Sherri Odlin: [00:18:40] We used to say, just a good multitasker. And don't get me wrong, that's very true. I think you just need to, one, just have an open mind. I think people come in to this trying to like set it into a box, like I've done this or that. How does 911 compare to that? And there are few jobs that we've talked about over the years that we feel like maybe can set somebody up for success for a 911 waitressing or bartending or something like that, because it is a very fast paced moving. You're doing a lot of things at the same time type of job, keeping an open mind, learning all that you can. We have a very extensive five week training in house training that we do before we even set somebody in front of a monitor or a phone or anything to start taking those calls that you can just see people flourish and they walk in the first day and their eyes get big and they walk out at the end of the day glazed over and just kind of shaking their head. And by the end of that 4 to 5 weeks that we do that training, you can just see the pride on their face of how far they've come and how much they have learned. It's a great feeling and it is a really tough job. It isn't for everyone, but to be honest, it's it's one of the most fulfilling jobs. It's the most fulfilling job I've ever had. If you really feel like you can do it, we will get you through that. We will make sure to help you as much as we can succeed at this job because there's a. Type of person that can come in and do this job. And we have some people working for us that thought, Oh, I'm never going to make it. And they've been here ten, 12 years and they're killing it. You know, they're just doing a great, great job. And then there's others that really want to do it, but then they decide that this really isn't for me. But I appreciate what you guys are doing.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:20:27] And you're in the basement of the courthouse.
Sherri Odlin: [00:20:29] We are in the basement of the courthouse. We have quite a good space, though. Now, back when Chris was dispatching it...
Dave Strohmaier: [00:20:38] It's not in the dungeon.
Sherri Odlin: [00:20:41] No.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:20:42] As I recall, we had wonderful gray ink carpeting on the walls that we used to vacuum on night shift.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:20:48] You vacuumed the wall?
Chris Lounsbury: [00:20:49] We used to vacuum the walls because they would get dusty. But now they do have this amazing, beautiful, inviting, warm space that through the courthouse remodel has really changed the environment significantly.
Sherri Odlin: [00:21:01] It is. It's a wonderful space. It's a good work environment. You know, it really is. It's inviting. No, there are no windows because we are in the basement. But I think most people, if you talk to them down there, they're like, oh, I don't even notice anymore. Or, you know, it's just part of the this is where I work.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:21:17] And so I should probably know this, but refresh my memory and what's your geographic area that you cover in terms of taking calls and dispatching just Missoula County? Do we slop out into adjoining areas a little bit or we do.
Sherri Odlin: [00:21:33] So it's all 2600 miles of Missoula County, Right. And then but we do serve as kind of some of the outlying Mineral County, Lake County, Ravalli County.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:21:42] Oh, we cover Mineral County?
Sherri Odlin: [00:21:43] Some of it. Some of. Some of it, yeah. Some of those areas right outside of our county and at Granite County too, because Clinton will go out there. We have quite the area to cover. I hope nobody has to call 911 because they're not calling to say it's their birthday and they want us to wish them a happy birthday. It's a bad day for them in some way, shape or form. So our hope is nobody has to call nine one. But if they do, we're hoping that they get the best service that they're expecting out of that call.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:22:12] Well, we absolutely appreciate all that, both the Office of Emergency Management does, but particularly what your 911 dispatchers do for this community. So please let them know. And it just so happens I don't know how this turned out this way, but next week, April 9th through the 15th is public safety telecommunicators week. And we want to give a shout out to all of our public safety telecommunicators and 911 dispatchers. Thank you. As we always do with these Tip of the Spear gatherings. Before we close, we like to ask our special guests if you've been reading a good book lately, have some nugget of wisdom that you'd like to share with our listening audience. Am I missing anything, Chris?
Chris Lounsbury: [00:23:06] I don't think so. I was going to say, I'm wondering if I can guess what Sherri will say.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:23:11] Oh, okay. Oh.
Sherri Odlin: [00:23:13] You got me. I don't know.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:23:15] So there's a great saying for dispatchers, which I really think is is one of the things that sums up public safety telecommunicators week. And it comes from APCO, which is the Association of Public Communications Officials and its "dispatchers save seconds and seconds save lives."
Sherri Odlin: [00:23:28] Yes, very good.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:23:30] And there is not a truer thing about our dispatchers. They're an incredibly professional and incredible organization and we are fortunate to have all of the ones that we have before they answer our special thing. The other thing I'd throw out there, Sherry, maybe if folks are interested in learning more about dispatch or touring the 911 center, who could they reach out to?
Sherri Odlin: [00:23:48] They can reach out to myself or Donna Townsley, our assistant manager. We'd be happy to run them through what it looks like, have them sit in, listen to a few calls if they'd like, and just see what it's like and see if they think that might be for them. We would love to have them down.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:24:02] And as opposed to what we were talking about earlier, this would be a question that they should probably not dial 911 to ask for, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:24:11] But Sherri's number is prominently on our website if needed.
Sherri Odlin: [00:24:15] Yes, definitely.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:24:16] Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you guys off for your nuggets of wisdom and and our thoughts.
Sherri Odlin: [00:24:21] I haven't even been reading lately, to be honest. I mean, just enough to fall asleep at night. I'm reading. Yeah. Hey, I'm with you. I love to read, but I'm just. I'm right there right now with everything going on, so. Yeah. Yeah.
Adriane Beck: [00:24:32] Well, in repeat fashion, I can talk a little bit about the books that I'm reading to our seven-year-old at night right now. And Frenchtown School did this districtwide project where they sent every kid home with the same chapter book. And then we had dedicated chapters to read every night and they were long chapters. But it was just it was a really great story. It was called Almost Super, and it was about these two families of superheroes that each thought that the other was the villain and had been fighting each other forever. And it turns out that there was this, you know, second family of villains that were pitting them against each other the entire time, but they just had the most ridiculous super powers. And it was just it was so much fun to read with her and she really got into it.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:11] So I thought you were going to say something like the illustrated version of our community Wildfire protection. The scratch and sniff version, I don't know.
Adriane Beck: [00:25:20] Right. Well, the last time I was here, I wanted to tell you about the reading I was doing on preparing for nuclear attack. And you told me I couldn't talk about that. So we're keeping it light.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:30] Okay, We'll we'll revisit that topic at a future tip of the spear. Thanks so much for joining us. We want to keep it.
Adriane Beck: [00:25:37] Friendly and light.
Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:39] Thanks, Sherry. Thank you. Thanks, Adrian. And thanks Chris Lansbury, who is our first ever guest co-host. Thank you, Chris. Well done.
Chris Lounsbury: [00:25:47] Thank you, guys for having me. I appreciate it.
Josh Slotnick: [00:25:51] Thanks for listening to the Tip of the Spear podcast. If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you like. And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them. The Tip of the Spear podcast is made possible with support from better known as Missoula Community Access Television and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division. If you have a question or topic you'd like us to address on a future episode, email it to communications@missoulacounty.us and to find other ways to stay up to date with what's happening at Missoula County, go to Missoula.co/countyupdates and thanks for listening.