Let’s go for a kayak ride Mike

Oh trust me, Mike isn’t the only politician guilty of this practice. Most politicians LOVE transparent government, when it benefits their agenda. Like I said a few days ago and throughout the mayoral campaign, TRANSPARENCY will be a tough concept for Mike to embrace, simply because he worked in such a secretive industry;

But it’s quite another thing to have quasi-official, unnamed transition team members whom you regularly consult to help you decide who fills those positions.

That’s exactly what it seems like Huether is doing, and it’s starting his tenure at City Hall off on the wrong foot.

Here’s where the ED Board (in all of their great knowledge) doesn’t get it. I don’t think Mike understands the entire concept of OPEN GOVERNMENT. I’m not saying he is stupid, just ignorant to what it means.

The new mayor has said he’s protecting those advisers from taking heat for their suggestions.

I can understand this concept in the corporate world, but not in the public sector. The taxpayer’s of this city are your board of directors and we have a right to know what kind of marketing schemes you are cooking up for this great city, and we have a right to the cook’s names and their recipes.

No one is helped by this lack of transparency, and Huether actually is undermining his own position by unnecessarily breeding suspicion that there’s something to hide.

This is where I disagree with the ED Board. Mike doesn’t think he is breeding suspicion, because this is how they operated in private industry, something he said he would bring to government (something I thought was a bad idea all along because private industry doesn’t have to deal with that pesky US Constitution).

Now that Huether is mayor, everything he does that affects the city ought to be as open and transparent as possible, and that includes the identities of the people on his transition team.

Making their names public would be a step in the right direction.

This was a guy who wigged out when the Gargoyle Leader published the name of his campaign consultant, do you really think he will give you the names of his transition team? Good luck with that. But you would think that at least one member would have enough integrity to reveal themselves . . .

18 Thoughts on “Mayor Huether; Only transparent when it is convenient?

  1. Poly43 on May 21, 2010 at 10:13 am said:

    Transparent? Yo’re asking for a lot l3wis. I doubt he will ever be more transparent than he was while marketing a “Fee Harvesting” card.

    Less than one week in, and what do we have so far on yourmanmikes bucket list? Let’s see. Oh yeah, a city ready to fork over 1.5 million for a monkey spa. Wanting to use our tax dollars to subsidize the airline industry. Wanting to use our tax dollars to subsidize public transportation. And don’t forget the promise of a McArena and finally fixing our streets. And just where is this money gonna come from? Remember, Sioux Falls tax payers are not cut from the same cloth as a First Premier credit card holders. Campaign promises Mike. Ain’t they a son of a bitch?

  2. scott on May 21, 2010 at 10:32 am said:

    it didn’t take long for the argus to start questioning their man mike did it?

  3. Costner on May 21, 2010 at 11:24 am said:

    Maybe his “transition team” is his wife and a few other select family members and the only reason he isn’t revealing the names is due to the fact he never asked them if they could call them official members of his “transition team”.

    If he tries to blame something on those who are providing him advice that is one thing, but if he is just asking opinions from a few friends of family members it is a whole separate issue.

    I’m willing to give the guy some slack (at least a bit more than a week) before passing judgement. He has a lot of cleaning to do and if you want to get your hands dirty chances are you will have troubles keeping your pants clean.

  4. l3wis on May 21, 2010 at 12:00 pm said:

    Oh, I am sure he is getting lots of advice from lots of people. And he has already named Dave Nelson as one of his advisors, but this isn’t about the random people, it is about the important ones.

  5. John on May 21, 2010 at 12:25 pm said:

    He named Steve Sanford as an advisor and Steve Metli.

  6. l3wis on May 21, 2010 at 12:31 pm said:

    Did he name Metli? I thought that was just a rumor?

  7. Costner on May 21, 2010 at 12:39 pm said:

    Seems maybe he is being more transparent than we were originally led to believe if he has in fact started naming names.

    If he names himself as an advisor or the voices in his head… then I’ll be worried. Until then I think he is doing just fine.

  8. l3wis on May 21, 2010 at 12:42 pm said:

    Okay, Okay, I’ll let the cat out of the bag, I am one of his secret advisors. I just couldn’t keep it in anymore.

  9. John on May 21, 2010 at 1:13 pm said:

    You and Pam Nelson

  10. John on May 21, 2010 at 1:15 pm said:

    He named Metli. I think it was during Argus interview

  11. l3wis on May 21, 2010 at 7:36 pm said:

    Pam Nelson, LMAO!

  12. L3wis:

    “Okay, Okay, I’ll let the cat out of the bag, I am one of his secret advisors. I just couldn’t keep it in anymore.”

    Ha! This from the guy bitching about transparency!

    Mike will surely benefit greatly from your advice, just like the last guy did.

  13. l3wis on May 22, 2010 at 6:58 pm said:

    Well, Kermit didn’t take my advice when I told him not to get partisan. Oh well. Money beat Kermit, not partisanship.

  14. Huetther was again whining about Stagger’s supposed tactics in today’s paper.

  15. l3wis on May 23, 2010 at 6:06 pm said:

    What story, I didn’t catch it.

  16. l3wis on May 23, 2010 at 6:49 pm said:

    I found it. When will this guy stop crying? He won. Why does he f’cking care what people said about his gay, pro-union, pro-choice, pro-Daschle, people are awesome, strange haircut agenda?

  17. Costner on May 24, 2010 at 8:53 am said:

    You’re wrong…. the strange haircut crowd is easily swayed. They were really pushing for Petersen all along and could only go to Huether during the run off because Staggers was bald.

    But in all seriousness – people always care about what people say about them. Many people have an inherent need to be liked and when someone dislikes them or says ‘mean’ things about them… they have a desire to figure out why.

  18. l3wis on May 24, 2010 at 9:12 am said:

    Hopefully he won’t let it consume his administration. I already said why I don’t like him.

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