Guest Cartoonist Hector Curriel
l3wis 
2009
Okay, I was off by one month, so sue me
Once the new CEO, Gary Allan Wood takes over, give him 16 months to produce a 180 in the building, if he cannot acheive that, terminate the management company’s contract, and start over.
Wood confirms to STORMLAND News that he has resigned as the CEO of the Washington Pavilion. He said it was his own decision and that he is excited about a lot of new opportunities that have come his way.
And the fact that he got tired of the board of directors having him by the balls.
Wood declined to say what opportunities he has been offered, but he says he will talk about his decision in more detail Friday.
I guess it takes a day or so to come up with the proper lie to tell the public. As I have said in the past, I hear a lot of silly rumors that I never post about. Someone tipped me off about this about a month ago, they said, “From what I hear, Wood and the Board of Directors are not seeing eye to eye and it is causing major tension.” Which didn’t surprise me, but it really wasn’t something I could say much about until now.
Of course, the Board of Directors kind of candy coats the resignation by not answering why he left;
“Gary came with some wonderful experience and knowledge of the arts, and he’s done some good things for us, and we’ve been pleased,” Pay said Thursday night.
“But we’ve reached a point this year – a horrible year for all arts organizations – where we’re scrambling to find out what it is we need to be going to prepare ourselves for this economic climate in the new year,” she said.
Okay, so why did he leave? I hope Wood has the gonads to blow the roof off of that place once and for all and tell the public about the Board of Directors and how they run the place with an iron fist with the help of their puppet and spy, Director of Operations, Jon Loos.
And if you have to have a meeting about this blog post, you have identified one problem already.
Huether has another ‘original’ idea?
Soooooo, did Mike come up with this idea all on his lonesome?
At a press conference this morning, Huether said he supports building a new events center seating 10,000 but that it can be done for $75 million to $100 million. The mayor’s events center task force has come forth with a proposal for a new facility that could hold as many as 15,000, expanded convention center and new hotel that could cost as much as $200 million, if a plan to relocate Howard Wood Field is included.
The 10,000 seat facility is what MPLS consulting group CSL proposed in a EC task force meeting. I think the words they used was ‘sweet spot’. At another TF meeting I was sitting next to Mike and told him that is what CSL recommended. Later in the meeting Mike asked me where the money would come from to build a new HW? I chuckled and said, “You and me.” Don’t get me wrong, I agree 100% with Mike on this, I just wanted you to know it is not an original idea, it has been floated for a long time, and the TF chose to ignore it. I also got the feeling from Mike during last week’s Mayoral Forum he isn’t on board with the funding source, he has also hinted that to me in person, because of the impact the retail tax will have on working poor. I just wish he would publicly come out and say it. So far the only candidate to publicly denounce the funding source is Staggers. I have a feeling Mike will be following suit shortly.
The KELO story is even better. It seems Peterson, Brown and Costello are have a hissy-fit over another mayoral candidate having a different (the right) idea;
“All of the candidates now, we could all play this game, we could all come out and say well, I’ll build one for, get into a bidding war and say I’ll build one for $50-million dollars, or I’ll build one for $25-million, but that doesn’t serve the citizens well,’ said Bill Peterson.
“We have to find a way to pay for it first, and then we can have the discussions about how big it should be, what the cost should be,” said Vernon Brown.
Candidate Pat Costello is a member of the events center task force. He says Huether’s pared-down version will short-change the city.
“It’s not going to have a $52-million dollar impact to our community. Could it work? Yeah. It worked 50-years ago, it’s called the arena,” said Costello.
Doesn’t matter if Mike has the right idea or not. The funding source will never pass 1) The Legislature, and 2) it won’t pass the voters.
You will see Shemp (Mike) setting himself apart from the other three stooges (Costello, Peterson, Brown) over the next couple of months. I still think it will be a battle royal between Huether and Staggers in the runoff.
Most often, Staggers is getting favorable responses from those who are concerned about spending issues. But when you add other factors such as which candidates are the best known or considered to know the issues well, then the race becomes much more even.
Yet, Kranz didn’t print any of those comments? Did he? Yah wanna know why? Because they are rare. The Gargoyle has it in for Kermit, and they just can’t bring it to themselves to say something positive about him without knocking him down in the next sentence. Talk about fair and balanced reporting.
Golly, gee, cure them gays!
This video is well worth the watch. I’ll admit, I make fun of the ‘gays’ but I also understand that you cannot be cured from it, trust me on that. Never trust a man named Dick. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing now, FF to the last 30 seconds, Rachel’s ending is fantastic.
Chickens comin’ home to roost?
I found these fun facts from the Heidi Scott campaign interesting;
“Today the Governor announced a record state budget deficit.  He blamed the national economic recession of the past year.  Yet, this budget marks the seventh of eight budgets he has submitted that spent more than the state collects in revenues.  In these eight years, state government has grown at a staggering pace, spending is out of control and governmental accountability is at an all time low,†Heidepriem said.
“Yet to solve this out of control problem, the Governor proposes to balance the budget by raiding relief funds, wasting stimulus dollars, raising taxes and balancing the budget on the backs of our children by making cuts in education. Where is the responsibility?  Where is the accountability?  This is wrong and South Dakotans should be outraged,†Heidepriem said.
“The Governor should do the responsible thing and slash his massive budgets of all fat, reign in all spending, cut unneeded state employees, cap spending, and open all of our state’s 1800 contracts to open bidding. To paper over these structural problems by first using relief funds or one time money is irresponsible and does nothing to solve the culture of bloat and waste in Pierre. South Dakota deserves better and South Dakotans should demand better,†Heidepriem said.
Yet we continue to elect these ‘supposed’ Conservative Republicans. They ARE NOT fiscal conservatives. They ARE NOT moral or ethical conservatives. They really are not conservatives in the true sense of the word. They are big government, greedy, Republicans, a trend that started with Reagan and perfected by GW Dush.
And Bob Mercer sums up Rounds’ administration (H/T -DWC)
Rounds is term-limited and the 2010 legislative session will be his eighth and presumably last, a situation that will only further embolden legislators and further undermine his relevancy.
Seven years of little innovation, no new efficiencies or savings of any significance, an emphasis on protecting his hometown’s economy, and showing minimal backbone on spending — he complained but still signed the budgets into law when the Legislature spent more than legally required on public schools, for example– are coming home to roost.