The monument to hypocrisy?

Not only does Denny want to control science and medical care in our state, he also wants to pick the next governor;

Sioux Falls banking mogul T. Denny Sanford has given Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard and state Sen. Dave Knudson $20,000 each in their young campaigns for the Republican nomination for governor.

And that could be just the start of campaign gift-giving for the billionaire donor, who dropped $200,000 into his own political action committee just days before a state law made such large contributions illegal.

No wonder Dennis and Dave never try to make waves in Pierre, they can’t upset their sugar daddy Denny too much.

I watched the Sioux Falls city council meeting in which several residents from the Sanford Rezoning neighborhood spoke out against the rezoning, mainly because they were not sure if all the residents were properly notified. Councilor Staggers suggested that Sanford should notify every single resident and have written proof they understand and approve of the rezoning before passage. Sounded pretty reasonable to me. But in typical beauracratic fashion, city planner Mike Cooper thought it would be easy to move forward as planned then if the residents wanted to change back he would help them out for FREE. Once again inefficiency won. What surprised me the most was that it passed at all. Two other councilors seemed to agree with Staggers during the discussion (Brown and Anderson) and Munson reminded them that it would take 5 votes to pass. Litz could not vote because he lived within 300 feet of the zoning area and Knudson was absent. Well guess what, Staggers was the only one to vote it down, so it passed. What makes this more disappointing was the citizens WERE NOT represented that night, the hospital was and if voted down it would have been a mere inconvenience for Sanford and would not have affected operations whatsoever. But the council decided to inconveniece 27 residents instead of the hospital, essentially turning their backs on the people who elect them. It was a pretty pathetic scene.

Here’s some commentary from the meeting;