October 2017

A member of the Sioux Falls Millionaire club comes out to defend the mayor

It’s good to see the mayor still has a few millionaire friends in town willing to defend him and their club. Mr. Byrne, a man who made millions himself (and has seminars to tell other people how to make millions) Thinks a few million here and few million there lost is ‘worth the risk’;

We’ve been making some fuss about $1 million of the $118 million investment we made to build our great new entertainment venue. Whatever we might think about that $1 million we’re fussing about, perhaps many of us can agree the other $117 million was a great investment. Maybe many of us can also agree that $117 million out of $118 million isn’t bad.

A couple million doesn’t seem to mean much to Mr. Byrne, but tell that to the poor stiff in Sioux Falls who is working 3 jobs to support his family and never will get to see some clown in a cowboy hat perform at the Denty, because he can’t afford it, but every time he purchases something in this fine community, he is helping to pay the mortgage so you can be entertained (around $10 million a year + maintenance and operations). But let’s look past the million dollars for a moment (we actually only got about $336K after legal fees – which doesn’t include the secret amount spent in the legal fight against the Argus) and look at all the lies told to the public, that actually cost us more in the end. 

How can you defend such corruption while pretending a million dollars (of our money) isn’t a big deal? Maybe if it isn’t such a big deal, why don’t you give half that ($500K) to the Huether Tennis Center so the mayor can pay back the taxpayers, I mean, if a million isn’t anything to you Bill, what’s half that?

And in conclusion;

Thanks to Mayor Mike Huether, Councilor Jim Entenman, . . .

Yes, please continue to mention these two as the dynamic duo attached at the hip who allowed this fiasco take place and continue to play the denial game. Diamond Jim as our next mayor would look no different than the current administration, except for moving city hall to Mexico for an entire month in Winter.

UPDATE: Another secret city committee?

UPDATE: After watching the replay of the press conference, I got even more concerned. It seems that a city councilor (Erickson) a private citizen (Greg Lafolette) and a Minnehaha County Commissioner (Dean Karsky) were working on this deal secretly behind the scenes without letting in their peers on their respected elected bodies. While I think the council should be in on negotiating these deals, it should be the ENTIRE body. This is why they have committees to deal with these things. I also think the mayor thumbed his nose at traditional cab companies. I agree that competition is a good thing, but when one of those service providers doesn’t have to follow the same rules, that is not fair. Just another day in the closed government of Sioux Falls.

While I’m all for having a ride-sharing service in Sioux Falls like Lyft, I’m a little puzzled by this;

Lyft comes to South Dakota as a result of the work of a private citizen, the Sioux Falls mayor’s office and city council.

The city website goes on to say this;

A team of City and State officials, as well as resident Greg LaFollette, have been working for months to attract Lyft to the city. Lyft is expected to launch operations in Sioux Falls as soon as they can recruit enough drivers. It’s possible that could be as early as spring 2018.

I wonder why this had to be some kind of top secret committee behind the scenes to accomplish this? I know that some of the city council and Minnehaha County Commission had no clue these negotiations were going on. Maybe it was to save them some embarrassment with UBER falling thru;

In 2015, the Sioux Falls City Council passed an ordinance that changed licensing requirements to allow transportation network companies to operate in Sioux Falls. In 2016, the South Dakota State Legislature approved a measure that changed insurance laws to allow companies like Lyft to operate in the state.

Yet UBER has struggled to operate in the state. I wish Lyft lots of luck. But it seems on the government side of all this they have learned nothing about transparency. Would love to see the deal that was cut with the state and city.

UPDATE: Could Mike Huether be the next president of USD?

UPDATE: I’ve been told from a USD alum that there are possibly two requirements Huether does not have to be the president of USD. You have to be alumni and you have to have a post graduate degree. So I guess he’s out.

Many have been ‘speculating’ for awhile what Huether’s next political move could be, with the recent kerfuffle over transparency and the secret siding settlement, Mike may have to sit out 2018.

But what if he wants to run in the future, what could he do while he waits? Someone suggested to me he could be seeking the Presidential position at USD. Jim Abbot will be retiring the same time Mike walks out of city hall, so the timing makes sense. It’s also an executive position, something Huether would desire. There is also the Sanford connection and a possibility that he would be allowed to commute from Sioux Falls.

The only thing that I think might hold him back is the fact he is a SDSU alum. Not sure if this matters in the selection process, heck it might even help his cause.

Something to ponder.

Sioux Falls City Councilor Neitzert posts timeline of siding issue on FB

As I pointed out on Thursday, it seems they new for a long time that the siding was not a good idea, but installed it anyway. Greg puts out a great time line of the events leading up to the settlement. (DOC: Events Center Timeline)

From Greg:

One of the biggest questions out of the Events Center metal panels issue is – what happened? I’m not sure we will ever know completely. However to try to add some clarity I have created a timeline of events. This timeline is based solely on public records and no inside knowledge or privileged information. As noted in the document it is believed to be accurate but some facts are not independently verified in other words there was only one source such as a statement by one of the players in a press release. All supporting source documents are publicly available. I think it answers some questions but it certainly raises more. In the end I don’t think it’s about beating people up or Monday morning quarter backing for the sake of second guessing, it’s about trying to learn from any mistakes so we can avoid them on the next big project.

UPDATE: Greg will be a guest on Patrick Lalley’s show on Monday, at 4:15. Oct 16, KSOO AM 1000.