After watching the interview with Jones and his challenger that the Gargoyle Leader did the other day, it was pretty clear to me who is the most qualified to be the next At-Large city councilor; Michael Jones.

Michael Jones touched on how our city council ‘doesn’t listen to citizens’ during the public input. He used the Event Center vote meeting as an example. He was disappointed that Knudson was indignant about the criticism that the public ‘does not trust them.’ He says the councilors need to ask more questions of these citizens. “We need to know why these people don’t trust city government, we need to ask those questions.”

As for the Events Center, Michael takes the Staggers/Huether approach and says it can be paid for without raising taxes. He also touches on something else; He doesn’t think the 3rd penny would go away after 3 years, he said, citizens are concerned it would just ‘morph into something else’ and he also questioned the ‘50 million dollar impact’ on the city. He asks, “Will that impact lower taxes for the common citizen?” His challenger, who sat on two task forces still seems to think the 3rd penny is the best way.

Jones supports snowgates and says they are worth trying out. He also says we need to focus on fixing streets more then building new streets. “Not all new development is good development.” He believes we need to get our infrastructure up to par before we develop more.

“When I look at Quality of Life issues, I’m a low cost high return kinda guys.” He believes that the city should let the private sector pay for more of the quality of life projects, and have them be more involved. He thinks we need an indoor public pool, but felt the last one that was proposed was poorly planned.

Jones thinks the city council needs to be more involved with the decision making process, and needs to be better checks and balances. His challenger kind of thinks councilors should just follow the mayor’s lead and thinks citizens need to ‘listen more’ to city government’. No surprise here, he has often had the elitist attitude that ‘he knows best, just trust him.’ We have had enough elitists sitting on the council, thanks, but no thanks.

Jones thinks that a full-time press secretary would be a good idea to better inform the public.

Jones thinks there needs to be better traffic flow downtown and parking.

He says that code enforcement needs to more customer service oriented and less confrontational. He also believes the city dump should be less expensive for private property owners. He also thinks the city should work with citizens to solve problems.

One thing I noticed the most in the interview was Jones’ demeaner. He seems to be a good listener and has a very citizen friendly attitude. His challenger, as a monopoly business owner in Sioux Falls, has a ‘government knows best’ attitude, and a less friendly customer service friendly attitude.

Jones is the best choice, hands down.

Gotta hand it to Joel Rosenthal, he really has no idea what he is talking about (or maybe he does and is trying to manipulate voters – hey Joel, everyone knows that is my job);

Kermit Staggers has been actively going door to door for approaching three years. He has had signs on his car that simply said Councilman Kermit Staggers, and appeared in several parades as a Council member. While rationalized as just talking to constituents, though outside his Central District, it is in reality veiled campaigning.

Joel, when is your hate-fest for Kermit going to end? So what if he has been campaigning for the past 3 years? Kinda sounds like a good plan to me. In fact, Kermit talks about the 19,000 doors he has knocked on as a councilor on his website. And while you call it ‘veiled campaigning’ I call it ‘doing his job’. Kermit listens to citizens, something it seems our current city government cannot comprehend. Vernon just wants you to send him a postcard (at your expense).

Finances do demonstrate the degree of support a candidate has in the community.

Yes they do, if most of that money is coming from regular ‘joe-sixpack’ constituents and small businessmen and women. But when you read the donor list of the top contenders, it reads like a who’s – who of Sioux Falls (financially). They donate money because they are attempting to BUY the candidates. I’ll give Brown and Staggers credit for taking the small donations from ‘real’ people.

Most every political activist and / or junkie believes Staggers makes the finals. I do not agree. It is a close call between Vernon Brown and Pat Costello.

LMAO! Vernon and Peterson are gonna have a death match for 4th place. The top three candidates running neck and neck are Huether, Staggers and Costello. I still believe that Staggers and Huether will be in the runoff. They both have grassroots support. And BTW, Joel, I am neither a junkie or an activist, just a loudmouth.

The two At Large Seats will be won by, (At Large A) Rex Rolfing (though never rule out a Coach or former Coach in this case Clarence Kooistra) and (At Large B) Jim Entenman. Michelle Erpenbach will win the Central District seat.

I have no well formed opinion about the Southeast District seat. The candidates are Sue Aguilar, Bob Christensen, and Ryan White. Like giving some edge to a Coach (note: Dave Munson was a coach early in his career) give a little edge to Christensen who is a Barber, another very well networked occupation.

Rex Rolfing? You are kidding? Right? Who is Michelle Erpenbach?

“The heck with potholes! What about me!”

Get out the shovel, The Gargoyle Leader’s editorial page reads like what is left on the bottom of the birdcage, good thing newspapers make good cage liners;

As a matter of fact, city officials have decided to cut money to nonprofit organizations by 15 percent across the board.

These organizations help provide vital health and social services across Sioux Falls, but the economic reality is clear. The city simply can’t maintain present levels of support until there are signs of a definite rebound.

But, we can continue to fund tennis locker rooms at McKennan Park and monkey crappers at the zoo. I still remember how pitiful it was when the director of the Gloryhouse had to grovel in front of the city council for a measly $8,000 from the city, and was denied. What is the GH’s mission? Keeping ex-cons out of jail and becoming repeat offenders. Not only is that a blessed mission, but it actually saves taxpayers money in court costs and incarceration, and most importantly it helps these men and women became better people. But hey, pink birds are more important, apparently. Then of course they blew a wad on this project again.

Now let’s start with the candidate endorsements. I really enjoy reading these letters, because they are so sugar coated I could puke. Let’s start with Patty Cake;

Costello is a university-trained certified public accountant. That training and his work in the field help him understand the complicated undertakings of financing and accountability for budgets and expenditures.

He worked ONE YEAR as a CPA. Whoo-Hoo!

His peers on the council have seen fit to have him serve as its chairman.

I encourage everyone to watch the council meeting where he was voted in. Not everyone on the council gave Pat the green light and for good reason, he has used the position as a campaign prop, as this letter (form) writer has proven.

His investment in the local community as owner of a restaurant . .

Don’t forget he also is a partner in one of the most troublesome, meat market bars in town, Borrowed Bucks, but you will never hear Patty Cake talk about that.

I really don’t have much to say about this letter, since I kinda support Bob;

Christensen is the candidate who will make the concerted effort to listen to the needs of citizens. His work ethic and leadership have been shown whether as lieutenant governor of the Optimist Club, volunteer leader in his church or operating an independent business – he always gives 100 percent.

Work ethic? He clips hair for a living. I do admit though, Bob seems to be a guy who likes to ask questions, and that is needed on the council, or in the barbershop for that matter.

And now a little trip down ‘Ironic Lane’, nope I’m not talking about Thune, I’m talking about ‘Ironic Mikey’;

It also been stated that Mike has no political background or experience. Well, everything we do in life is political such as getting an education with limited funds, earning a promotion before your co-worker does, buying a car and not getting ripped off and taking a chance to go up against those who minimize your political experience.

LMAO! Mike built a career in the Credit Card industry ‘ripping people off’. I about fell out of my chair when I read that sentence. Mike, you should have proofread your sister’s letter before she sent it. I’m still laughing.

And let’s end today’s rant with a little wisdom;

I’ve learned a long time ago, you can’t have everything you want.

Maybe you should tell that to the people running for office these days.

…you must be blind, deaf, and incomprehensibly stupid. Time to find a new source of rainbows and unicorn farts.

The bill that would have allowed cities to raise a third penny sales tax for special projects was shot, hanged, poisoned, racked, gassed, lethally injected, drawn, quartered, and waterboarded by the House Local Government Committee.

While most of the arguments against the bill came from people saying they didn’t want to tax the poor to pay for something they’ll never use (a good argument), the main problem I have with funding a new EC with a sales tax is that it’s a crappy way to fund an entertainment building. Tax Bed, Board, and Booze instead. This will still give us enough revenue to build an EC without putting an undue burdon on people buying groceries or yet another set of clothing for a daughter who grows faster than our national debt.

The most unfortunate (and telling) part of the linked article is the paragraph quoting Jane Page of the State Department of Revenue.  She’d like to keep the option open for the state to raise sales taxes in the future without having to pile on top of increased local taxes.  I wonder how many legislators “can’t wait” to raise the sales tax to build all kinds of wonderful stuff.

Now that the city has to go back to the drawing board to come up with a workable idea, maybe they’ll be a little more open-minded about better locations and funding sources. If not, we’ll still be talking about building a new EC 20 years from now.

That was Eugene’s answer to councilors when they asked him what they should do in response to the survey.

During Inside Town Hall councilor Jamison talks about the (unscientific) city survey. Of course they were all hyped up because they got a 93% on people saying Sioux Falls is a great place to live. What does this have to do with government? Not much. What makes a community great are it’s people, not it’s politicians. During the interview when Jamison is talking about the negative results he said that street maintenance was at 32% (without saying what that 32% meant) The actual suvey said “32% think our streets are good to excellent”. That means 68% think either that our roads are either poor or fair. That is why it is important to spend the 2nd penny on what it is for, roads, not monkey crappers and wood thingies in parks. They also forgot to mention that only 40% of citizens think that city government listens to them. Rowenhorst said that the survey cost $21,500 and only 922 people responded. That is well under 1% of the total residents. The survey cost $23.31 per response. You could have paid me that per respondent and I would have knocked on doors and did a realistic survey. Also left out is that the survey was only mailed to registered voters. This is not a surprise, but it does tell us that the city isn’t interested in your opinion if you don’t vote. I’m okay with that. I think people who don’t vote and are not registered need to get a clue and start participating in this thing we call a democracy. I have often felt there should be an income tax surcharge of $500 for every person who is not registered to vote.

In the second half of the show, Mark Cotter and Bob Litz came on to defend the poorly formulated arterial road funding. Litz went on a little rant about the media not giving them time to explain themselves that is why he came on Inside Town Hall. Give me a break. The proof is in the pudding, the numbers don’t lie. Taxpayers have put in over 13x more then the developers have. What is there to explain? Cotter also changed the formulation to 70/30 now (taxpayers put in 70%) Originally it was going to be a 50/50 partnership (LMAO). Litz blames the economy for developers not putting in their share. REALLY? If the economy is so bad then why are you taxing citizens more? It’s okay for developers to skirt their responsibility but taxpayer’s are forced to pony up?! We warned you on the night of the vote that the economy was tanking, and you ignored us or watched the Olympics. Read the above paragraph; YOU NEED TO START LISTENING TO CONSTITUENTS AND STOP MAKING F’ING EXCUSES! Bob said that we need to just hold tight and the developers will start catching up with the taxpayer’s contribution. I won’t hold my breath.

Another back door deal, luckily it fell through;

The negotiations had been a closely guarded secret, and some city councilors were unaware of them. As late as Monday night, administration officials were declining to talk about the issue. But on Tuesday, Mayor Dave Munson confirmed that talks had ended.

“They looked at what they felt they could do,” Munson said. “It just wasn’t close to where we were at, so we dropped it.”

What I can’t figure out is why ’some’ councilors were let in on the secret and some were not? Does the mayor view some councilors more important then others? He sure does. According to this article, at least one person knew about it.

“I know that there really wasn’t an appetite for us to spend money,” Councilor Greg Jamison said. “It was supposed to be on the cheap. I told them that it was the only way I could support this.”

I can bet that Knudson was probably also let in on the secret. Government works best when it is out in the open, transparent and has checks and balances. Why were there only a couple of councilors serving as those checks and balances? This stinks, but is no surprise. Here is an example of the partisianship that exists;

Rumor has it few weeks back the city councilors and mayor received an email from a event center task force member accusing one of the councilors in participating in class warfare, and organizing the effort to kill the Events Center recommendation. I know this councilor very well, first off I won’t even respond to the class warfare comment since that is the typical talking point rich people drag out every time the little guy mentions they don’t want to pay for their playgrounds (and this guy is rich, trust me) but as for organizing the effort, I can say this, I know this councilor very well and at no time did he ever mention to me or Cheryl Rath that we should attend EC task force meetings. In fact, Cheryl is the one who encouraged that same councilor, myself and the media to show up to the meetings because the shit was going down. I haven’t seen the email yet, but I’m crossing my fingers that it will surface in the media and reveal once and for all some of the bullies that sat on the Task Force ramming their flawed plan down taxpayer’s throats.

But back to the original topic. I have often felt that the city should have refurbished the coliseum for a performance hall and converted the old Washington High in joint offices for the county and city and left Carnegie as a museum. But it is still not too late. The city owns the Pavilion and has dumped over $20 million into it’s maintenance and upgrades since it opened over 10 years ago. I have suggested all along they close the Science Center (except the Cinedome) and make the space into offices for the city. It wouldn’t cost us a penny.

King Dave wants to make sure his dictatorship stays in place long after he is gone

It seems lately Munson is making a lot of board appointments, prematurely that is. If you fast forward towards the last item you will see that councilor Staggers objects to the appointments, and the rest of our fine rubber stamp leaders seem annoyed. Word on the street is that a lot of these appointments shouldn’t be done until the next mayor walks into office, but it seems Munson is trying to stack the deck against the next mayor. He even appointed one person on the ethics committee to a 5 year term even though they are only supposed to serve 4 years. Many departments are also trying to sidestep the council and administer their own rules. This is disheartening, but not surprising. I have often said that Munson is crooked. He got busted twice breaking city ordinances and everyone looked the other way. I look at it, like I looked at GW’s presidency, we must learn from the mistakes.

As I warned, there is going to be a lot these type of shananigans going on before King Dave leaves office

I just got done reading Sue Aguilar’s website. She is running for SE district SF city council. I like some of her stances especially on road funding;

Infrastructure
Streets/sewer/water – the essentials of any good city government.  These basics are too often taken for granted, yet are one of the main functions of city government.  Currently, portions of the second penny sales tax, originally instituted many years ago to keep our streets maintained, have been used for other capital improvements.  While I am not opposed to using a small portion of this money, the majority of the dollars from this source must be used to make sure our streets are improved first.  Then and only then can we use any portion of this fund for other projects.

This is a tough choice, because I also believe Bob Christensen would make a good councilor. But, I will say this, the city council needs more women, and Sue isn’t a slacker;

Sue began her professional career in New York, where she held positions as a Government Bond Trader, Human Resource Executive, and Social Services Administrator.

This is a tough one.

At least Bob didn’t say, “Who killed Kenny?”

As I have told the city clerk, Debra Owen in the past, the microphones are on before the informational meetings and the councilors sometimes say some fun stuff. Vernon and Bob have an interesting exchange (crank up the volume). It first starts out with a conversation about Bob pulling an Angry Guy and falling in his driveway, then it turns into a whisper session about councilor Kenny Anderson. I can’t make it all out, but if anyone else can, put it in the comments section. The one line I could make out really cracked me up, “I’m sure leadership knew about it,” Litz. F’ck Bob, Munson knows everything, except when he has to take the stand.