Here is a recap of Mike’s first day in office;

It started out with some show tunes by some school children and some tears from our new mayor. (Seriously Mike, stop crying. You spent a gob of money and won. We get it. Congrats).

He kinda shoots the whole transparent government thingy in the toilet in this interview with Megan Luther from the Gargoyle Leader. He refuses to;

• Name members of his transition team

• Name what department heads might be canned

• Jodi Schwan’s future

I guess he will only be transparent when it is convenient for Subprime Mike. This of course is no surprise to me. He worked in a very secretive industry and it will be hard for him to adjust.

In the informational meeting Mike decided to repeat his campaign speech at the beginning and did it again in the regular council meeting. I had a few disappointments during the first meeting. When the competitive bids were discussed, no councilors asked questions. In fact Mayor Subprime didn’t ask a single question during the entire meeting. This worries me a little with him having NO government experience. Of course the mantra from the department heads was they were coming inline with state law when it comes to competitive bids (which is true). But since when does the city care about state law or the US Constitution?

In other news, Greggo Jamison gets elected Council Chair and Sue Aguliar gets elected Vice-Chair. And not once did Greggo rip up fake checks or bitch about a casinos.

20 Thoughts on “Tears of a Clown?

  1. l3wis on May 18, 2010 at 7:03 am said:

    I really laughed when Mike was doing his interview with Megan and his hands were flailing everywhere like he just got done watching Bruce Lee’s ‘Enter the Dragon’

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGMVKaLLOI&feature=related

  2. Costner on May 18, 2010 at 7:28 am said:

    He needs to retire his prudence and progress line. Someone should make one of those dolls where you pull the string and it just repeats “progress and prudence, prudence and progress” over and over again.

  3. Plaintiff Guy on May 18, 2010 at 11:07 am said:

    Maybe there’ll be some progress once he finishes his tutorial on city operations. When he discovers all city legal actions are revokable post 2006 and into the future, there’s going to be all new staff at the city attorney’s office. See if they can surf over the falls on Munson’s plaque.

    Likely, present and newly initiated litigation will paralyze his term such that ‘progress and prudence’ becomes ‘democracy and compliance’.

    It’s not his fault. Munson tyranny and corruption continue to spiral Sioux Falls into the sewer.

  4. l3wis on May 18, 2010 at 12:10 pm said:

    Well it looks like he canned the city attorney and Schwan today.

  5. I don’t get why its news that Schwann’s out of a job. She was a Munson political appointee.

  6. Poly43 on May 18, 2010 at 1:17 pm said:

    Transparency l3wis? Did anyone really believe there would be be transparency from a “Fee Harvesting” marketing guru?

    This from the Argus Q&A.

    Q: When do you think you will make the transition for new department heads?

    A: You will be hearing more about that in the near future. I will not be announcing everybody at one fell swoop. But you will be getting a sense for that in the near future. I am a change person. I do not believe that the status quo is as good as we can make it. So, you are going to be seeing changes over the next four years so there is no set timeline. But as I see things that need to improve, as I see people that we can bring on to make the city stronger, I’m going to do.

    Now that might sound OK if you’re into sound bytes. But here is the truth of the matter. $130,000 a year department heads are running around wringing there hands trying to keep their cushy jobs. And how will they do that? We got an early indication a couple weeks ago when the parks department cut a few hours a week off the wages of $8.75 an hour lifeguards. That’s where overpaid department heads will try to make “sacrifices” that will include NO sacrifice of their own. Mark my word. This week a lot of the 400 plus part time, no bennie, $10.00 an hour front line grunts will lose their jobs or have their already meager paychecks made even more meager by cuts in the number of hours they work. As per usual when shit like this happens…it will all flow downhill.

  7. Costner on May 18, 2010 at 1:18 pm said:

    What should be newsworthy is the severence package given to them. I’d be shocked if they were leaving with anything less than 4-6 months of full salary plus benefits.

    Not a bad deal if you can get it.

  8. Costner on May 18, 2010 at 1:20 pm said:

    My comment refers to Schwan and Amundson by the way… not the line level employees Poly spoke about when he slid his comment in ahead of me!

    🙂

  9. John on May 18, 2010 at 1:31 pm said:

    He said Jodi is being paid through this Friday.

    Amazing to me the first day on the job- first action is to can her!!!

  10. l3wis on May 18, 2010 at 1:44 pm said:

    No kidding. Mike Cooper would have been my first ‘canning’

  11. Plaintiff Guy on May 18, 2010 at 1:57 pm said:

    Next, fire the other Shawn (Tornow) and the code enforcer. They’ve cost the city millions and are guilty of unconstitutional bullying. Storming onto private property and taking possessions without a court order (so called trash removal) is illegal. Citing citizens multiple times (double jeopardy), improper service (mail, not in person), and denying appeals into court are major civil procedures violations. A municipal attorney represents the city legally but also represents city management. Threatening us and obstructing justice is unacceptable. Tornow is a narcisist sociopath. He thinks it’s his city. It’s the people’s government and he is a sorry representative. The code enforcer is an ignorant night club bouncer. He was dismissed from the highway patrol and fired from the city of Vermillion. Oh, add the human resources director to the list. He hired the code enforcer knowing Tornow was looking for a tough guy and personal body guard.

  12. Plaintiff Guy on May 18, 2010 at 2:01 pm said:

    More termination ideas:

    Shawna Goldhammer, Planning/Zoning
    Judy Buseman, Health

    Lots of reasons but the best one is they simply have no function and will not be missed.

  13. John on May 18, 2010 at 2:29 pm said:

    Mike did mention fiscal responsabilty getting rid of Jodi. I would echo getting rid of Cooper. He will be a thorn in Mike’s side.

  14. l3wis on May 18, 2010 at 2:56 pm said:

    Cooper is sneaky. He was sneaky when he was Parks Director and he is sneaky as City Planner.

  15. Plaintiff Guy on May 18, 2010 at 5:24 pm said:

    I don’t know much about Cooper but it sounds like Huether and Cooper could be a good cage fight that should be booked into the Pavilion.

  16. John2 on May 18, 2010 at 8:25 pm said:

    Le3is, thanks for the cogent analysis of the interview. Early indications are the mayor will be challenged by public governance vs his sole exposure to the “my-way-or-the-highway corporate culture.

    Government is fundamentally different than the private sector. The only legal objective for the private sector is to maximize shareholder value, i.e., profit. If there is “profit” in governance, then the taxpayer is getting screwed. Governance is only about which services to provide, providing them as efficiently and effectively as possible – and doing it all in a visible, public forum. It is no wonder that very few business executives succeed in government. Let’s hope the mayor does, for Sioux Falls and South Dakota’s sake.

  17. l3wis on May 19, 2010 at 12:16 am said:

    I waited on a college professor and his wife from UND the other day. He travels to Omaha quite a bit (I think he teaches there also). We got into a discussion about Sioux Falls and how he likes stopping here and I suggested some different DT restaurants to him. Somehow he brought up local politics and our recent mayoral race and I told him about Staggers (21 years of government experience and a Poli-science professor, etc. and told him about Huether as a CC executive). Naturally they thought Kermit won. When I corrected them, his wife said something to the affect, “What is wrong with people?” Inferring that they are extremely apathetic.

    Mike’s lack of government experience will be the yoke around his neck.

  18. Plaintiff Guy on May 19, 2010 at 7:07 pm said:

    Agreed, Staggers would have been good. However, accept Huether. He’s the only hope for the next 4 difficult years. Far into history, before there was a city or state, Munson is the most damage. He had a thriving economy he used to personally profit from public money. There will be a lot of makeup from his corruption.

  19. l3wis on May 19, 2010 at 7:45 pm said:

    What a waste.

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