I don’t know the answer to that question because obviously there has been NO mandate at this point, and I don’t expect the city’s top employee manager, Mayor TenHaken, a (closet) right-winger, to mandate one. I believe he could do so by executive order, but lacks the spine to do it.

Several of my city moles have told me that Dr. Chima, the Health Director, did ask that the city has a vaccination mandate. If that is true, he was obviously denied, which is no surprise.

I have also heard from people visiting Falls Community Health that many people working at the clinic don’t wear masks even though the CDC requires a clinic receiving Federal money should require the employees to wear masks. Supposedly one person working at the clinic was asked wear their mask was and they said, “The mayor said I don’t have to wear one.”

I wonder how the CDC and Medicare would feel about that and future Federal funding of the clinic?

I find this concerning, because this place does receive Federal and Local tax dollars, and common sense would tell you that when working in a medical clinic you should be wearing a mask. The private clinics require it and follow CDC guidelines. Heck, Burger King employees even still wear masks.

I fully support vaccination mandates for taxpayer funded employees. As major employers like Sanford and Tyson Foods have proven, compliance is over 95%. Mandates work and the handful of employees you would lose wouldn’t be missed. Maybe the city has $49 million laying around for severance 🙁

I’m actually pretty excited about Dr. Chima coming to our city, especially his views on preventative care. This podcast gives us a hint of his thought process.

I also believe that he will be welcomed by our immigrant community and the healthcare community.

I do have concerns though, some are obvious, some are not.

First, it is safe to assume Dr. Chima was selected through a national search conducted by the city’s health board. It is probably safe to say that the mayor’s office and HR department had little to do with the selection, but I’m sure they had to put their stamps on it. I’m sure we will hear more about that in the coming weeks.

My biggest concerns are how he will be accepted by our Healthcare industrial complex in the city that thrives on keeping people just sick enough so they make money which goes against his philosophy of wholistic care and preventative medicine. This of course is not just a problem in our community but across America and why healthcare in this nation is so expensive and really not that good.

I also am concerned how he will operate openly in a very closed city government. Science and medicine performs the best under trust and honesty.

Lastly, I am concerned about the bigots in our city that won’t give him a chance. I think HE can handle it, but I am not naive, he will have some enormous obstacles to overcome when it comes to racism.

I wish him luck, I think he will be transformative, if we will let him.

Many of my readers have been asking me why I haven’t posted about the retirement of Jill Franken. To be brutally honest I have been privately celebrating.

But I will give her a brief reprieve.

Jill got the top job under Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut’s administration under the recommendation of a city councilor who was very close friends with Jill. Doesn’t really matter who that person was because it is simply a matter of ‘who you know’ not ‘what you know’.

Under Jill’s reign of chair warming she has virtually ignored prostitution in our massage parlors, helped cover up ghost ambulances and as her number one duty to protect public health in dealing with Covid turned it over to our Hospital Industrial complex. Oh, and she killed smoking at Jazzfest, which ironically has been killed anyway.

But I think my best memory of Jill was when she was asked to personally call me by the previous mayor to tell me about all the various distribution sites of FREE condoms. I wanted to laugh, but I think I just said, thanks for calling.

Like most 6-Figure directors in Sioux Falls that quickly cash-in on their retirement at the top of the pay scale I thankfully say, good riddance.

A foot soldier sent me this video of some roaming gun rights dude (who first calls it Sioux Falls, Minnesota) and reveals some interesting rules about carrying weapons in public buildings in South Dakota. As far as I know, he was correct in his assessment, you can’t legally carry into courthouses, schools or the capital building, but all other public buildings are free game. I have often told the city council that Carnegie Hall is a dangerous place because they don’t limit firearms, and as we saw in this video just filmed a few weeks ago, apparently you can bring them into public health facilities.

Oh, and Mr. Filling In security guard . . . WOW!

Just when we thought the big announcement was Amazon there is another one brewing in Sioux Falls. I wasn’t going to say anything because I figured it was going to be headlines on Stormland TV last night. I guess not, but enough peeps have been blowing it in my ear, and it sounds like the announcement could be as soon as Monday, so I will give you a teaser.

So here is what I will give you, and you can draw your own conclusions (please, feel free to comment, but I will delete any comments that mention either party). A major healthcare provider in Sioux Falls is planning a ‘Merger’ (not an all out sale) with another major provider. The kicker is that the other provider is NOT local, they are not even regional. They are from a western mountain state.

But this is where the news gets juicy, while I have heard the name of the system that wants to merge with the Sioux Falls system, I was a little taken back. They are owned by a large religious organization, and let’s just put it this way, it’s not Catholics or Protestants (or even Jews).

If the merger happens, and all the parties I have been told that are involved are truly involved, healthcare in Sioux Falls is going to look very different a year from now.

Oh, and probably expect more people knocking at your front door 🙂