July 2015

UPDATE: SD Democratic Party’s NEW Executive Director – Suzie Jones Pranger

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Suzie and her husband Joel

Not sure when the Dems were going to formally announce their new director, but here she is. She has a law degree from USD.

UPDATE

As Chair of the South Dakota Democratic Party I am pleased to announce that Suzanne Jones Pranger will start as the new Executive Director on Monday, Aug. 3.

Suzie is an attorney with experience in Democratic political campaigns and issues. A proud fifth generation South Dakotan, she will bring political experience, an exceptional work ethic, professionalism and passion for the values of our Party to the ED position.

Suzie graduated with high honors from USD School of Law in May of 2014 where she was the Founding Organizer of USD Law School Democrats. She also holds a Masters of Political Science with American Politics and Public Policy Emphasis (Perfect 4.0 GPA, I might add).  BA (and another 4.0) was also from USD in May of 2011 with Political Science Major and Minor in Business Administration. She was the USD College Democrats President from 2010-2011.

In the summer of 2009, Suzie was a Congressional Intern in Washington DC working for both Sen. Tim Johnson and Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

During the 2010 election cycle, she worked as a campaign headquarters intern for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin where she assisted senior campaign staff with fundraising, media interview prep, volunteer outreach, scheduling, and event planning.

During the 2010 SD Legislative Session, she was a Senate Democrat Intern where she was aid to Senate Minority Leader Scott Heidepriem and Caucus Chair Ben Nesselhuf.  In the 2011 Legislative Session, she returned to Pierre to serve as the Senate Democratic Caucus Secretary.

Suzie volunteered to help with the original YELL (Young Elected Legislative Leader) programs and drafted all the bills and amendments for our high school student program.  She also has experience with the Native Vote Protection program where she oversaw election officials on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in 2012.

In 2014, she was selection as a DNC Hope Institute Fellow. Suzie was one of a total of 40 fellows selected from a nationwide application pool of several hundred to attend the DNC’s comprehensive campaign training program. This intense training emphasized managing national and statewide campaigns, running for office and fundraising.

She has spent the year since graduating from law school clerking for a judge in Sioux Falls.  Her contract expired yesterday, July 31. Because that employment precluded her involvement in politics, we have waited until now to announce our selection. Thanks for your patience and understanding as we awaited this announcement. If you’ve read through all of her qualifications, I hope that you agree with me that she was worth the wait.

I believe that Suzie will be with us for many years to come and that she will serve the Democratic Party as an exceptional Executive Director.

Ann

Ann Tornberg, 

Chair of the South Dakota Democratic Party

UPDATE: The Huether Cat is out of the bag, we now know why he wants to increase user fees

At Huether’s budget address today he proposed his 2016 budget, a $64 million dollar increase over 2015 ($471 MILLION). In fact, when Huether took office in 2010 that budget was $337 million, a $134 million dollar jump in just 6 short years. Huether claims it will be covered by revenue, but my question is why not have a little bump from 2015 and use the extra revenue to pay off debt? (our debt service in 2016 will be $39 million). SEE THE DOCUMENT: 2016 Budget

I guess this explains why Huether has been clamoring to raise user fees, he has a huge wish list for 2016. Seems he is over promising to a lot of folks in town (mostly developers and businesses).

The other ironic part is that this increase could almost cover the county’s entire budget for next year ($71 million), yet they have to do an opt-out (increase our property taxes) to make ends meet.

This is what happens when you elect a marketing VP from the worst predatory CC company in the industry – out of control spending and more debt.

UPDATE: Steve Young updates us on some important quotes from today’s shananigans;

“I look back to when we first went to cameras in the cars and having the officers recorded. A lot of them weren’t real excited about that. I think they looked at it as ‘Big Brother is going to try to catch me doing something,’ ” Barthel said. “The fact of the matter is, a lot of times we’ll get complaints, people accusing our officers of doing something, and all we have to do is pull up the video and look at it. In 99 percent of the cases, it saves their backs. Now they’ve come to rely on it.”

Yet Chief Barthel will not release the audio from the Tuthill shooting incident. Why? Will some backs not be saved? As a County Commissioner said to me tonight, “The more officers the city hires means the more arrests that will be made. What does that mean for our budget?” He also added that the county has had the same number of employees for the past four years. The new 27 city employees will add almost $2 million to salaries next year.

In acknowledging the size of his budget proposal, the mayor encouraged city councilors “to feel good about what you’re doing. Feel good because the citizens, they’re doing well. They’re pleased with our progress.”

In other words, don’t look over here, nothing to see, go back to watching football and eating at Applebees, (and don’t read DaCola) we have this handled. If there was ever a time for more scrutiny of this city government, it is right now and Councilor Erickson nailed it;

“I think over the next few weeks, we’ll definitely be diving into this to see what is needed, what is maybe not needed. … and that we’re growing in a responsible way and not be proud that this is the largest budget in our history,” Erickson said.

I wouldn’t call myself a fiscal prude, I am all for money being spent on infrastructure and roads, parks and social services, but there is a lot of big ticket development projects that smell worse then the Big Sioux River in this budget. Take for instance the idiocy of tearing down and selling a parking ramp for $1 then turning around and building a $10 million dollar ramp.

Based on his first take of the budget, Councilor Dean Karsky acknowledged the large jump but said nothing initially seemed out of line to him.

SF Chamber Board member saw nothing out of line. Imagine that? Oh Dean:(

City of Sioux Falls uses Permanone for mosquito spraying

Let’s just say after reading this in a city press release I decided to do a little research;

The City will be using the product Permanone for spray treatments. Products used by the City of Sioux Falls are designed to break down in the environment quickly and are used at very low concentrations. Permanone is a product approved for use by the EPA in residential areas for adult mosquito control.

Sounds harmless, right? Unless you are a small animal, get it on your skin, fish or bees or a vegetable garden or have chickens. Here’s some fun facts about this poison they are spreading throughout the city;

This pesticide is extremely toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Runoff from treated areas or deposition of spray droplets into a body of water may be hazardous to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Do not apply over bodies of water (lakes, rivers, permanent streams, natural ponds, commercial fish ponds, swamps, marshes or estuaries), except when necessary to target areas where adult mosquitoes are present, and weather conditions will facilitate movement of applied material away from the water in order to minimize incidental deposition into the water body. Do not contaminate water when disposing of equipment wash waters.

This pesticide is highly toxic to bees exposed to direct treatment on blooming crops or weeds. Do not apply this product or allow drift when bees are actively visiting the treatment area, except when applications are made to prevent or control a threat to public and/or animal health determined by a state, tribal or local health or vector control agency on the basis of documented evidence of disease causing agents in vector mosquitoes, or the occurrence of mosquito-borne disease in animal or human populations, or if specifically approved by the state or tribe during a natural disaster recovery effort. Applications should be timed to provide the maximum possible interval between treatment and the next period of bee activity.

Do not use, pour, spill or store near heat or open flame.

Do not allow spray treatment to drift onto pastureland, cropland, poultry ranges or potable water supplies. Do not use on crops for food forage or pasture. In treatment of corrals, feed lots, swine lots, and zoos, cover any exposed drinking water, drinking water fountains and animal feed before application.

I guess we got our answer to what the city is using to kill skeeters, but what other harm is it causing?

 

The Planned Conversion of the Former Horse Barn Arts Center at Falls Park is (literally) BS!

As the Sioux Falls Business Journal reports, they are looking at converting the once FREE arts center (not just to the public, but to the artists that displayed there) to an admission charge to see a museum dedicated to agriculture and the stockyard history.

First off, not opposed to museums about farms and killing cattle, but since they are already planning a ‘Stockyard Park’ next to JM’s, why not have the museum over there instead of in Falls Park? Seems like an ‘ODD’ location to have an ag museum that is surrounded by public art and the beautiful falls.

My bigger complaint is that there is NO reason why the Horse Barn could not be utilized AGAIN as a local and regional art museum that is FREE to the public. It was unfortunate that it was closed down and the Sioux Empire Arts Council was killed.

But hey, the past is the past. Moving forward, let’s return the Horse Barn to an arts center again, with visual art displays, poetry readings, concerts and even plays (I think a group of quilters met there also). We could also have the Sioux Falls Arts Council take it over again, or any other number of great arts organizations in Sioux Falls like JAM or DAPA, even an artist union of sorts could operate the facility.

It would be a much more appropriate use of the space then a museum about cows and what they taste like.

Is the City of Sioux Falls having a change of heart about ‘Washington Square’?

Not sure, but this press conference has me curious;

Come to the news conference to learn more about the Washington Square project and how City officials are proposing to support the project.

As I have said in the past, I was opposed to the massive TIF requested for this project, but I wouldn’t be opposed to something scaled back, like a low interest community development loan, financial assistance with cleaning up the alley and upgrading infrastructure in that part of Downtown, even some kind of lease agreement with the city on parking. But a large TIF for condos doesn’t float my boat.