https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhMw7mOZgSc

She is wondering if it is OK for city councilors to circulate petitions. The ethics commission will give their opinion tomorrow at 3:30 PM. The meeting will be at city hall in the old commission chambers. While I support councilors wanting to circulate petitions, I have encouraged Stehly to try first to work with her peers on the council to get legislation passed and if that fails than do a petition drive. I know she has run into walls with council in the past, but I have argued that mainly had to do with the rubber stamp leadership of council and doing whatever the mayor told them to do. I think her opportunity to get legislation passed on the council is much greater now with the new mayor and council than what it has been in the past two years.

UPDATE: Stormland-TV is speculating that Big T is going to try to have a petition drive to change our form of government. Maybe. Doesn’t really matter, she should have the right to have any petition drive she wants to. I do know that her and I have talked for years about changing Project TRIM and having the city trim their own trees in the boulevard (if the citizen is unable to). With the Ash Bore crisis coming upon us, right now would be the time to get the city to take care of those trees. I do know, like snow gates, it may be hard for Theresa to get that past the council, even though Brekke does support it. We will see. Stehly hasn’t shared with me what her intentions are, but it would be interesting to watch a sitting city councilor lead a petition drive to change our form of government. Things could get very, very, very ugly.

15 Thoughts on “UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Councilor Stehly asking for an advisory opinion from Ethics Commission

  1. D@ily Spin on June 6, 2018 at 8:25 pm said:

    There should be an answer to this question instead of an imposed restriction.

  2. She should bring an attorney with her.

    Say…..someone like Jon Arneson.

  3. A weak-mayor/council form of government, I am assuming?

    This should be interesting. Because in modern times, every time we have gone with a new form of government in this town, we have ended up with a new mayor, too..(?)…. In ’86, going from a two to a four commissioner system, gave us Jack White in place of Joe Cooper (Cooper had defeated White in ’84)…. Then in 94′, White’s second five year term was shortened by two years with the start of the current city council form of government, which then gave way to the Hanson reign…. Is everyone else thinking what I am thinking? 😉

  4. Rachel on June 6, 2018 at 9:11 pm said:

    There are many things that Theresa believes and stands for that I disagree with, but I think think she genuinely cares about Sioux Falls and the people who live here. At least I hope she does.

  5. l3wis on June 6, 2018 at 9:15 pm said:

    VSG – We can only hope. I think we should follow Mickey D’s lead and just have a Kiosk government. Later on that.

    Rachel, she has a big heart, and sometimes it crowds good ideas.

  6. Rachel on June 6, 2018 at 9:37 pm said:

    I think having a big heart is ok.

  7. l3wis,

    “Kiosk” is a Russian word, right? It’s a by-product of Detente, I believe. So “Kiosk” or not, don’t we already have a Russian government in DC?…. And how is that going for us?

    But “Kiosk government” also sounds rather Star Trekkie to me. Wasn’t there an episode of ST where people were sent to death as war causalities, during a galactic war, based on computer projections of battle simulations?…”Kiosk government: Efficiency is the answer!”

    But better yet, I can’t wait until they come out with a future version of SimCity with a virtual reality component to it, that allows you to live in the government you want too…. Just imagine St. Rep. Clark’s world in such a gaming reality… But I am afraid his backwardness would prevent him from ever entering that reality, however…. And thank goodness….. But that also means, that we are left to put up with him in the real physical world…..

  8. Theresa stehly on June 6, 2018 at 11:52 pm said:

    I have been inspired by past petitioning efforts led by other elected officials in State,County and municipal government.
    Having this issue clarified publicly for Sioux Falls City Council members will be a valuable piece of information for the citizens. As far as a petition drive, I would like to vote on a mandate to put Driver’s Education back into the High School curriculum..in the same way that we provide for band and chorus.

  9. l3wis on June 7, 2018 at 8:28 am said:

    I would vote against that. I think driving is a privilege and your parents should pay for that, we fund enough extra crap for the schools. That, and I don’t think you should be able to get a license until you are 18. We have too many cars on the road in SF already. I think we should do like IA and require you to license vehicles every year whether you drive them or not. It would do a lot to reduce the number of junkers people have.

  10. Theresa stehly on June 7, 2018 at 10:18 am said:

    Well Scotty, we can disagree on this..when I grew up in the 60-70’s there was more emphasis on defensive driving and it was offered as an elective. You may call driving a privilege but when a child can’t afford to take Driver”s Education, it becomes an activity for the privileged.

  11. l3wis on June 7, 2018 at 10:23 am said:

    If a student can’t afford driver’s ed, how can they afford a car, insurance, DL fees, licensing fees and gas? My thots are if you have money for all that, you can afford Driver’s ed also. Like I said, a privilege not a right.

  12. D@ily Spin on June 7, 2018 at 10:42 am said:

    Changing city government, it’s about time people realize Home Rule Charter makes the mayor a dictator with absolute power. Align or ignore the council and give directors a big raise. Everyone looks the other way while the mayor spends hundreds of millions on foolish overpriced projects awarded to a few insiders. Then, build yourself 6 indoor tennis courts with public money and rename national holidays for yourself.

  13. D@ily Spin on June 7, 2018 at 10:56 am said:

    I don’t miss the mayor who dressed like John Gotti. No political party would accept him except maybe the Nazi party. He walked with his lieutenants outside the city hall social club. If you crossed him he had you arrested or assaulted you. Spending a hundred million of public money was pocket change. Bragging he could ignore the council and do anything. Teflon Mike is gone and he’ll never serve time for his crime.

  14. We need to bring civics class back into our curriculum…. It’s the “driving”force to a healthy democracy…. 😉

  15. Some things rise to the level of a petition drive, this does not.

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