South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

January 2012

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Councilor Erpenbach proposes replacing the city clerk w/ 2 positions

l3wis 3Comments

Two for the price of one (Image: KELO-TV)

Not sure if you watched Erpenbach’s items she walked in at the council meeting last night (#22-23), but worth the watch (end of the meeting, FF: 1:11) The items are still not visible on the website in PDF form.

They basically are replacing Owen with two people. One as an administrative clerk and one as a legislative lobbyist for the city (legislative operations manager).
There argument is that the city clerk should only be an administrative person and not an advocate for the council, but for all citizens and A-Political.
As for what the Legislative manager is going to do is beyond me, Erpenbach says they are going to be a ‘researcher’. Something Owen also did, very well, in fact probably too well, since she often found many things we were doing incorrectly as a Home Rule city. (and you wonder why we are always getting sued).
They also want to create a operations research committee.
I still scratch my head that they fired one of the most talented and transparent people working for our city and now want to replace her with TWO people and an entire committee! But Erpenbach points out that they are actually saving money in the council’s budget. Who cares if we are saving money when we are creating more unnecessary bureaucracy.
We are going to be paying for this bad termination decision by the city council for years to come.
1st Amendment SF City Council Sioux Falls

Leave public input as is

l3wis 3Comments

Here we go again, another set of city councilors want to make a bunch of changes to something that is not broken (informational meeting);

“Doing it on the front end of the meeting has never made much sense to me,” Councilor Vernon Brown

Huh? It makes perfect sense. The public should not have to WAIT for the city to do their business. City directors and others doing BUSINESS with the city can wait. Both are either getting paid directly from city taxpayers or benefitting from a city service. It is the one chance citizens can make their grievances heard without being inconvenienced.

Munson used to pull this crap where all of his rich developer friends got to speak first on an issue, the platting fee tax increase comes to mind. How did that turn out? The taxpayer’s got bilked and the developers have yet to put in any significant amount of money.

Citizens need to speak first.

There is one change though I would like to see and hope there is discussion on it. I think if a citizen directly asks questions from the mayor or city council, they should be afforded an answer. If they do not want to be questioned by the mayor or city council during their public testimony, they should have that right also. I just think it is kinda strange the mayor had to wait until the end of the meeting to respond. I also think it is strange that the Council chair just sat there with the gavel in her hand not knowing what to do with it. “Uh, what’s this pretty shiny wooden hammer for?” She could have allowed the constituents to respond to the mayor without it turning into a parking lot rumble.

Is public testimony uncomfortable? Sure. And if that bothers you, you are welcome to resign from your position. I’m sure Darrin Smith can fill you in on how to go about that.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Get out the butter and salt, should be an interesting public testimony at Carnegie Hall tonight

l3wis 8Comments

I encourage everyone to tune in tonight at 7 PM.

Megan ‘Patron’ Luther gave us a tease today in Sioux Falls’ ONLY free online newspaper 🙂

UPDATE: Okay, I am a big piece of dog poo-poo. I planned to speak at the council meeting tonight, but took a nap and my alarm did not go off. So all I have to offer is my written script 🙁

I have addressed the city council many times, but one issue that will always drag me to this podium is First Amendment rights. I’m not a fan of 5 minute rules and this guy everyone calls ‘Roberts’ – I guess I never saw his signature on the US Constitution.

But one thing I won’t tolerate is when elected officials TELL citizens, who pay their wages and elect them, to sit down and shut up, or for that matter to remove their hats. Things haven’t changed that much in our democracy when it comes to our rights as citizens. We elect you, we pay you, and guess what, you have to listen to our grievances, we also afford you the same right in responding to us – essentially a two-way street called debate and discussion which makes democracies healthy. I wish you would engage citizens during public testimony. It occurred during the last mayoral administration, and I am curious why it ended in this administration.

Is it uncomfortable? Damn right it is, change and progression is never easy or comfortable. If you have a problem with that, I will gladly accept your resignation. I want my elected officials to be uncomfortable and challenged. If you want an easy job with the city, I heard there is a vacancy for a downtown parking attendant.

It is one thing for elected officials to gripe about public testimony, it is something entirely different when hand-selected board appointees shut down testimony. They are not elected, and as our good mayor and councilor Entenman have pointed out, they are not paid for the work they do. All the more reason they have ZERO authority to tell a citizen they cannot have public input about public policy.

Not only do I think some people on the Charter Revision Commission should resign, I think they owe a public apology to the citizens of this city for their blatant disregard for 1st Amendment Rights. As a citizen of this city and the United States, I am embarrassed they behaved in such a fascist manner in a democratic nation.

Whether the Charter Revision Commission is a stacked deck in favor of the mayor’s agenda is for the public to decide, personally, I think they are. Some of them hold city contracts and have contributed to the mayor’s mayoral campaign. Coincidence? I don’t think so. But that argument is for another day. Today we are talking about the 1st Amendment rights of citizens, and I think they have been violated by the Charter Revision Commission and I encourage and applaud any citizen who has the courage to talk about it publicly, as I have often argued FREEDOM IS FREE – FREE SPEECH – SPEAK OUT! Corruption lurks in silence.

South Dakotans State Legislature

Hillbilly SD legislator of the day; Don Kopp

l3wis 40Comments

Que song please;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8[/youtube]

I knew it would not take long for the legislative session to turn into ‘Guns and Abortion‘

RAPID CITY, SD – A Rapid City lawmaker says South Dakotans shouldn’t have to get a state permit to carry a concealed gun. Republican state Rep. Don Kopp says he’s introducing a bill in the South Dakota Legislature to get rid of the permit requirement. Kopp says if a South Dakota resident doesn’t have a criminal record, he or she should be able to carry a concealed gun without getting a permit and having to pay $10 for it. Kopp believes the permit requirement violates a person’s right to bear arms. His bill has been assigned to the South Dakota House’s Judiciary Committee.

But can the unborn carry a concealed weapon? Oh, wait, I can almost hear the faint sound of Don’s wheels spinning.

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