July 2015

Does appointed Minnehaha County Commissioner Jean Bender know what a farm is?

l3wis July 6, 2015 4Comments

I warned certain people with the county that Jean’s inexperience with the rural aspects of serving as a commissioner would probably not make her the most qualified for the job and her extreme conflict of interest with having one of the largest developers in Sioux Falls and the county as a husband. But of course, the county commission took a different route, kept the selection process extremely secretive and hand-picked (another) attorney for the commission.

What concerns me is that the commission doesn’t have one single person on it that understands rural issues, I think the only one that lives outside of Sioux Falls is Cindy, and she is an attorney. Barth is a retired union lineman, Beninga, who runs Active Generations, I believe is an accountant, an attorney, a former nurse, and Dick Kelly, a retired house and land salesman that spends a good deal of his time outside of Minnehaha county at his vacation residence (ironically he probably has the most experience with rural living – just not in Minnehaha County).

Recently Commissioner Bender went on a bender about the proposed CAFO’s, she seemed to be upset that someone didn’t bring computer renderings of their proposed site. But that wasn’t even a part of the proposal. The landowners were looking for the permission from the county to go ahead and take the next step of actually planning the CAFO’s. Their arguments were fair, why spend the money on expensive computer renderings and blueprints if the county isn’t going to give them permission to begin with to start the planning process (CUP) (They have to come back to the commission with the building plans before dirt can be moved). Bender wasn’t having it, she voted against the CUPs because of ‘napkin’ drawings continually changing (which was due to the neighbors and county attorney) and claiming the applicants were disorganized. While I could partially agree, it was evident they weren’t members of the toastmasters, they knew exactly where they wanted to build their CAFO’s (on their land) and they also knew how many cattle they wanted to operate with. They really didn’t need to tell Bender anything else. For that matter, they could have gotten out an Etch & Sketch and handed her that – it didn’t change the location of their farms or the size of the operations.

All she proved is that she doesn’t understand that in rural Minnehaha County there are farms, and some of those farms have cows, and some of those cows poop, and on occasion, that poop stinks (some of it). She also doesn’t get the fact that when a farmer may build a structure for themselves they don’t come to town and hire an expensive architect to draw up plans for a pole barn (just the city of Sioux Falls does foolish things like that). They get out a tape measure and a level and figure it out in their heads (believe it or not, farmers are good at math). She seems to be more concerned about where her husband may be planning his next big annexation/and housing development (that doesn’t have to breath in the evil smells of a farm) then she is about encouraging ag growth in the county.

I highly suggest a well respected farmer in the county runs against Bender in 2016 and send her packing back to the non-transparent, big-city appointment, computer rendering world she came from, and she can go back to using napkins for what they were intended for, writing down grocery lists, dirty jokes and keeping your martini glass from sticking to the bar.