“I need to work on my DECEPTION acumen a little more.” (Screenshot, KELO-TV video).

I think I.L. Wiederman said it best at this Listening and Learning session with the mayor;

“Why did they say they did fire her? It’s cloaked in secrecy,” I.L. Wiederman said.

Huether did admit he made a mistake, when it came to the process, that is;

“I wish that I would have engaged them more to try to help them understand what we were trying to accomplish in terms of providing dignity, professionalism and safety to the process. But I didn’t do that. That was a mistake; that was a mistake,” Huether said.

But no mention of making a mistake by firing Owen.

UPDATE: Ellis from the Argue Endorser had a good column about the firing today.

The former clerk, Debra Owen, sent councilors an amortization schedule, a forecast showing what the city would pay each year for the next 22 years to pay off the bonds. It showed that in six years, the annual payments would jump to $10 million.

As we all expected, this has to do with the Events Center, but are councilors Erpenbach and Aguliar the ones up in arms about this? Or are they the scapegoats?

You’d think this would be valuable information, right? After all, we’re talking about the biggest single investment the city ever has made. But for her efforts, Owen received at least one phone call from a city councilor who was furious that she had sent out the information.

Unlike the AL, I will tell you who that person (probably) was; Jim Entenman. I’m about 99.5% sure. Just like the mayor, he wants this EC to pass. He has been made the fool on many task forces not getting this done, and I’m sure he flipped a lid when Debra was out spreading the truth before a public vote.

The mayor and councilors say they can’t talk about it because it’s a personnel issue. I have managed to piece it all together, off the record, from several sources. I hope it all becomes public. Let’s put it this way: The people who say they can’t talk because it’s a personnel issue aren’t protecting Owen. They are protecting themselves.

I still haven’t pieced it all together myself, but I think it is unfortunate that the AL wouldn’t just print what Ellis’ educated opinion is on the matter, especially if the proceedings were improper. If it is all true, how could Ellis and the AL be sued for slander?

21 Thoughts on “Cloaked in secrecy

  1. The Heater saying he’s ‘sorry’ is the same kind of sorry you get from a shoplifter. They arent sorry for the crime, they are only sorry they got caught. Mikey is only ‘sorry’ that this thing turned into a PR nightmare for him

  2. He follows the Mantra, “Do what you want to do and ask for forgiveness later.” It works for a lot of politicians.

  3. Pathloss on September 25, 2011 at 11:21 am said:

    I agree with comments. Everyone is finally seeing this carnival barker for what he is. Ellis wrote a good article about Owen in Sunday Argus.

  4. That was a great column by Ellis.

  5. It just a shame that his pussy ass editors wouldn’t let him print why she was fired, or that he couldn’t mention Jim Entenman’s name. If it was illegal for them to fire her in that manner, what would be illegal about him printing the reason she was fired?

  6. There are a lot of ethical issues to consider before printing something, and they can’t just print something based upon a hunch or educated guess. The Argus did the right thing in not naming names because relying upon second or third hand accounts is insufficient to start inserting quotes or giving attribution.

    And I still have no idea why all of this anger is directed at Mike. His error was in how the situation was handled by simply being there or not properly explaining why he was there. That is minor… and he isn’t the one who had anything to do with Owen being fired because like it or not that is outside of his control.

    So why isn’t anyone upset at Owen? If there really is some bid dark evil secret on why she was fired or if it really was as petty as you seem to think… why hasn’t she come out in the open and explained it herself? Outside of the council members and the Mayor, Owen is the only single person who has direct knowledge – and she isn’t talking.

    Speculation is fun. Spreading rumors is fun. Pointing fingers is fun. Obtaining facts isn’t nearly as much fun, but is a lot more valuable.

  7. My_Mistake_Mike on September 26, 2011 at 9:37 am said:

    Huether pushed for the meeting and if one of his puppies found their moral compass and strayed from the plan he was there to vote her ass out.

    Owen was fired because she sent out info they didn’t want the average voter to see. Period.

  8. Costner – I would agree, Mike isn’t ‘directly’ responsible for Owen’s firing. I think he probably regrets getting involved now. He could have easily excused himself from them. As for speculation, I don’t know what happened or why Owen isn’t talking. I do however know that Jim Entenman was the councilor that was unhappy about the proposal. That isn’t some big secret that needs to be hidden. Besides the payment schedule for the EC, Debra has done EXTENSIVE research on how other city governments approve contracts. I think I had a discussion with her about this shortly after Huether took office. I have an inkling that vote in two weeks will be interesting. The ballot language has also got me thinking. Read it, and you will notice that the council can move ahead with an EC w/o voter approval.

    http://www.siouxfalls.org/~/media/documents/city_clerk/elections/42856_CityEventsCenterSampleBallot.ashx

  9. It takes 6 council members to call a special meeting, as I understand it. It sounds to me like only 5 of the councillors (those who voted YES on the firing) wanted to call the meeting. The other 3 were very outspoken against the firing, and more than likely did not agree to call the meeting. I believe that is why the Mayor had to call the meeting, since he can call one unilaterally. So in that sense, the Mayor is more or less directly responsible, since the meeting (probably) couldn’t have happened at all without him.

  10. This is true.

  11. And if the Mayor didn’t call the meeting it would have happened at the next city council meeting which would have been an even larger mess due to the number of people that would need to be pushed out of the chambers.

    It isn’t that unusual to have the Mayor call the special session because it is easier than trying to round up all of the council member’s votes. I can’t really fault the Mayor for that one… but I think he realizes now that due to what went down he is left looking like the bad guy. The average citizen probably doesn’t even realize he didn’t vote on the issue… so he will bear the burden of blame to some degree.

    I still think there is more to this issue, because the inforamtion people are claiming Owen distributed was already out there and was being used by the build it downtown people after their location wasn’t selected. So unless Owen was feeding info to others in an effort to influence public opinion against the majority of the council I’m not sure the bond schedule was a closely guarded secret.

    Now if she DID feed into to other people in an effort to sway public opinion, I can see why some of the council members thought they should take action. Owen was an employee of the council so she is expected to either support them or remain impartial. She should not go behind their backs as that is in direct conflict with what she is hired to do.

    Not saying that is what happened, just saying it is one possibility that would help explain the situation.

  12. “Now if she DID feed into to other people in an effort to sway public opinion, I can see why some of the council members thought they should take action. Owen was an employee of the council so she is expected to either support them or remain impartial. She should not go behind their backs as that is in direct conflict with what she is hired to do.”

    And in that lies the problem. If ONE councilor requests information from her, she has to give it if it is available. Let’s say councilor X asked her for the info. She did the right thing in forwarding that information to all of them. I don’t think Debra would have just dug it up on her own to cause problems. She is very impartial. Her and I have disagreed politically on several issues, and she has never once told me I was wrong or right on an issue, she knew her title prevented her from doing so. Her husband on the other hand has debated me on issues, and when we were debating, Debra just smiled and stayed out of it. I just have trouble grasping that Debra would have done things differently on this issue, unless she had a death wish.

  13. Does anyone besides Weiderman show up to these things? It’s good he does, seems like a sparse crowd.

  14. That is why this EC vote is so hard to predict, nobody knows who is voting for what. Should be interesting.

    I’m voting tomorrow. NO, NO, NO.

  15. Totally off topic, but I got a new comment today on this story (read the last few comments) I see Legacy is hiring some real winners;

    http://www.southdacola.com/blog/2011/03/so-just-how-much-is-legacy-electronics-going-to-pay-workers/comment-page-1/#comment-59243

    Proving to me the reason they moved here, high productivity, low wages, low taxes.

  16. Analog Tape on September 27, 2011 at 8:59 am said:

    Sorry this is off topic;
    One thing for sure (based on most photos I’ve seen with this Huether character) the guy dresses with total disrespect to the people of Sioux Falls. Worn jeans and a $10 shirt and no tie?
    Sorry – All I can say as as I skim over these articles is that I can’t wait for the next election. Anyone in mind we need to support?

  17. What types of wages is Legacy paying? Would be interesting to know how they stack up against Raven or Sencore etc.

    “Damn good money” to some people might be $14 an hour. “Damn good money” for others might be $25 an hour. Just depends.

    I can understand them moving out of CA though. To make electronics requires solder, and in CA they make people jump through so many hoops and include so many warnings on everything that the regulations would be a huge burden. High Tech companies are leaving CA on a daily basis due ot the regs. Unfortunately… many of them end up in Texas.

  18. Does Texas make Bullshit Detectors?

  19. Obviously not. Have you seen who they have elected as Governor lately?

  20. That guy tells more lies to cover up more lies then any other politician I know.

  21. This is a link to an amortization schedule for the event center. Perhaps this or some version of it is the schedule that supposedly is part of the controversy.
    http://docs.siouxfalls.org/sirepub/cache/2/cqprsj553orikw55qsxsfe55/17794709272011081538144.PDF

    I’ve been highly suspicious of the claim that we can do this and not cut a single program from the CIP (I figured someone had a bridge to sell me with that line). Cross referencing this schedule with the last few years budgets and the 2012 proposed budget:

    Using the 125 million dollar figure, which includes 115 to build it plus 10 million in required reserve borrowing and bond funding expenses, we’re looking at 10 million a year to pay this down. Our CIP budget is in the 45-50 million dollar range. So we’re talking about taking 10 million to pay the bonds on the event center from the CIP (20% of the CIP?). Am I missing something? We were also talking about using entertainment tax, but that was a contingency to pay operating expenses if it doesn’t turn a profit (I can’t believe it will based history of these facilities) – not to pay down the construction bonding costs. To be fair in 2014 and 2017 other bonds are paid off that frees up 5 million I believe in CIP money that could offset some of this. We were talking about interest only at first for the first few years, they’ve changed that a bit now I believe. Its hard for me to believe you can have your cake and eat it to, that you can take on this amount of debt service and not have to cut a ‘single program’. It just doesn’t pass the smell test. The projections of course assume everything goes right, the center makes a profit, sales tax revenues increase year after year, there is no economic downturn, nothing else major comes up. Its also interesting to note we’re talking $200 million when all is said and done with this approach, that’s important to note.

    One of the guidelines I’ve gone by in my own life is never do anything that will only work if everything works – meaning don’t do things that can only work if all of your positive assumptions and hopes are true and nothing goes wrong. I want an event center at some point, but this seems like we’re just asking for it. As others have noted as well, none of this is binding. Any council, or even this council, is perfectly free to do whatever they want which could include doing it anyway, spending more than promised, raising taxes, etc.

    I really do want an event center on an emotional level, but its hard for me to figure out how this plan has business acumen or is fiscally conservative, with all respect.

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