So if Paul becomes mayor he thinks he is going to make some changes;
TenHaken said establishing a sign-up sheet for those wishing to address the City Council, potentially reducing the five minute time allotment, enforcing a code of conduct for everyone at meetings and designating seats in the Council chamber for those who’ve signed up to speak.
First off, Public Input belongs to the public. Secondly, the mayor has ZERO power in changing the rules at public input, that is the council’s job.
I will not sign a sign up sheet, and I will not sit in a designated area. Public input belongs to the public. We own this government and the agenda, not the mayor or council. I will not have goofy rules put on my 1st Amendment rights.
When people are acting up, you gavel them and ask them to leave or escort them out by security.
It is already intimidating enough for people to come and speak, we don’t need to make that process harder for EVERYONE because a few bad apples called the mayor names when HE wasn’t following his own rules of conduct.
I refuse to take a number and be called on like a person waiting at the DMV. And if Paul or the Council think they are going to thru with these changes there will be the biggest revolt they have ever seen, and it won’t involve respect or decorum.
Obviously the Argus supports these changes or they wouldn’t have endorsed him.
You forgot the part of the article where Jolene declined to comment. You know what that means? She’d change it too but isn’t TRANSPARENT enough to tell the voters. #lyingloetscher
Scott – What would you do to clean up the total s**t show that is public input currently?
So people will be escorted to their proper pew? Cool! It will be just like church.
Can you point to the Charter or constitution where it says public input is required at meetings? How is five minutes the magical number but three minutes infringes on your rights? Does the public vote on the time limit?
One thing I’ve learned is Strong Mayor Charter is not democracy and inalienable rights disappear more and more with each mayor. If TenHacks gets elected it might be time for a freedom of speech State Courtcase with some Sunshine Law contempt.
If the council changes to rules on public input to what Paul is suggesting, will you sign the sign up sheet or will you just refrain from ever public commenting again?
J – They will never do that. As I understand it they want to leave it as is for now and see if things calm down.
Duane – the council makes that decision. Every governmental body decides on their own what the rules will be. This isn’t rocket science.
Wrong – Jolene has told me and has stated publicly several times that she would make no changes to public input and that was up to the council.
MP – A veteran that accuses the council of murder and a vigilante calling the mayor an SOB is NOT reflective on the rest of us. You handle the situations on a case by case basis. And just because TWO people have decided to act this way doesn’t mean public input is off the rails. The mayor has decided to NOT follow his own rules of conduct, and when that happens discontent occurs. I strongly believe once Mike isn’t running the meetings anymore all of this will go away.
Hate to be the one to point it out, but the public inputers have no one to blame but themselves. They pushed it further and further each week to the point where we are now….where changes need to be mades. Leave the hate and snide remarks at the door. It’s time to act like adults.
Chad, as a person who has been commenting at public input for over 14 years, you really have no clue about how we got here. All fingers point to one person, and they lie north of the public input podium.
No single raindrop thinks it is responsible for the flood. The whole cabal of the weekly lineup of commenters has poisoned the well for all.
You might as well get a grip and realize you’ll do as your told if you want a chance to speak. You were the first to whip up this can of crazies and you’ve relished in it. Now the majority find this BS too belligerent to ignore.
Best choose your friends a bit more wisely in the future. I told you some of these were unstable. Mea culpa would be wiser than more rabble rouse.
Its really not even public input anymore. Its the same people that come up and complain (yes, its never anything but complaining).
The guy who has been hearing from all his friends and they’re mad.
The lady who complains about the cops, pimps and crackdealers on every corner.
The guy who complains about the VA.
The lady who complains about the city not doing enough for the homeless.
The guy who plays videos with zombies, and laughs as he wastes everyones time week after week because its the only time all week he feels validated.
Same junk every week. If they want to have the circus act, at least move it to the END of council so all the people there on legitimate business can get home to their families aor tune out instead of hanging around for the garbage “entertainment” for 30 minutes at the start
Wow, all of these new alias commenters coming forward in defense of NixonHaken. They are like alien starships attacking the common man and woman, but then again if NixonHaken wins, we will begin to enter a rather alien world will we not? Where blizzards had better not happen on Saturdays, because the City won’t address them until Monday, and Bible study will be held right after work on Wednesdays with absentees to be noticed.
Sadly, I agree with LJL, Stiles, and the others. Public input has become a collection of meaningless diatribes from people who appear to be wanting to annoy the Mayor more than make a valid point.
While some speakers do act professionally, others should be cut off for their comments.
And thanks to you collective raindrops the council/mayor should make an adjustment.
Maybe it should be only getting to speak monthly per person. Or only getting to speak once on a issue instead of repeating the same complaint each meeting.
I don’t want to sit through a presentation about police car bumpers just because the presenter doesn’t know anything about them. Maybe there should be a requirement that if it’s a problem with a department, they have to have tried to contact the department to resolve it or get the information first.
You blame the person north of the podium, but when you argue with an idiot, people watching can’t tell the difference.
How many times in our lives have we seen either one irresponsible person or small group of people ruin something for everyone. Time and again. And what typically happened? The adults had to step in and change the rules because some couldn’t handle it. There is nothing new under the sun.
LOL, VSG. Lot’s of new commenters, all in the tank for the Dutch apparatchik of the digital dark.
Must be part of the NixonHaken social media rapid response teams (interestingly, a term used by one of these commenters in an attempt to smear the campaign of NixonHaken’s opponent).
“Maybe it should be only getting to speak monthly per person. Or only getting to speak once on a issue instead of repeating the same complaint each meeting.”
Yeah, maybe I should only let people here comment once a month, or maybe I should require everyone to use their real names. Hey while we are at it, why not burn the US Constitution? Who needs the 1st Amendment, or the 2nd Amendment, or any of them. While we are going down that rabbit hole, why not get rid of local elections? Let’s let the Chamber and business elites appoint a dictator to run the city. Hey that’s the ticket. Let’s also stop fixing the roads, and removing snow. Want affordable housing? Let’s set a tent farm up on the fairgrounds. It is so silly to allow the public to have a voice. Who came up with such BS? 5 minutes? 3 minutes? Why not just let them have only one sentence that should have to write down on a 4 x 6 notecard and put into a locked box.
Freedom of Speech? Who needs it? It just complicates things.
Quite a feather in the cap of Mr Ehrisman to be on the map so as to require attention from the NixonHaken campaign.
I have watched City Council meetings for decades and I agree both public input AND the decorum of city councilors have devolved in the past couple of years.
However, I am grateful I live in a democracy even as messy as it can get at times.
The Bill of Rights defines and defends the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.
The First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
…..abridging the freedom of speech….
A slippery slope, indeed…..
Excuse me, I’m just here for the eventual doxxing.
You can stop all the commenting you want on this site, it’s your forum and you could be doing it now for all anyone knows.
Not all speech is protected by the first amendment as court precedent has set. You can’t go into a crowded theater and shout FIRE and you can’t engage in hate speech or incite violence.
Court precedent has also established a difference between “traditional public forum” and “limited public forum”.
You want to rant on the street for an hour about corrupt city government and the mayor tries and stops you, he’s violated your 1st amendment rights.
You come to a council meeting (limited forum) and don’t follow the established rules – which by court precedent, the council has the right to establish rules such as limiting time and topic, then you’re in the wrong.
As long as the restrictions are “reasonable” and “viewpoint neutral” (fairly nebulous standard for case precedent), many courts have ruled the soapboxes belongs outside, not disrupting government meetings.
Hmm. Bit too long of a post. Here. Will fix it for you. “Whoohooo. Looks like TenHanken just gave me enough to justify attacking him every single day should he win. Almost had to find a new hobby. Long live my blog!”
The idea of signing up for public input is not a new one.
When Debra Owen was City Clerk, there was a sign-up sheet on the podium just inside the door of the council chambers.
If you wanted to be guaranteed a chance to speak, you had to sign the sheet. I actually had to use this policy at one council meeting when Huether cut off testimony. When I pointed out I had signed the sheet, he had to allow me to give public input.
Hopefully Tuesday solves this problem, else, I am afraid, six months from now many of us will be sporting on the bumpers of our cars “I Miss MIKE!”
TGfG, their “rapid response team” is of Panzer qualities; and when we joke of the “BatHaken” cloak, well, it is more likely the wear of a commandant instead.
And don’t forget, a NixonhHagen with computer skills is “nothing” but a Nixon as his own “White House Plumber.”
And I can’t also but help to note, that this proposed new seating chart for citizens at the City Council meetings appears to be Puritan in nature and “fundamentally” undemocratic…..
I’m wondering if no public input violates Roberts Rules. There shouldn’t have to be that much input at first for new mayor. Huether was a syndicate crook. People who spoke he had attacked with assault, lack of due process, erroneous code enforcement, and other devious harassment. It will take time for the new mayor to learn his tricks.
I’ll be truthful with you, I want to start a clean slate with Paul if he becomes mayor. I will give him an opportunity to be a ‘changed man’. He has done some pretty snaky things in the past, and during this campaign, but I hope he can rise above it.
It’s funny, because I have read the week long hit job Pat Powers has done Jo, and it only reinforces my belief and knowledge the games him and Paul played with Pat’s websites. Notice neither of them have ever denied it has happened. I was waiting for at least Powers to come after me either on his blog or in a threatening email (he has sent me quite a few) about the issue. But only silence, because they both know what they did. This is why Pat has been on his PTH defense mantra for a week, he has to pay him back for bailing his ass out.
Like I said, I look forward with sitting down with Paul for a second time to lay out what I expect out of the mayor’s office. I don’t ask for much except good and clean and transparent government. And if he is willing to strive for those things, he will have no bad press from me.
I also think that the new council is going to be thrilling to watch, I think they have a lot of legislation in the hopper that will make our city better. And it will be fun to blog about actual positive things coming out of Carnegie. Because I can’t take another 8 years of this secrecy bullshit. I really can’t.
The silence of our buddy over at that war campus concerning the “client” controversy is reminiscent of the silence from our current mayor after the collapse of the Copper Lounge… And I will leave the rest to everyone’s imagination….
As far as a honeymoon for the next mayor, well, is there, or should there be, ever a true honeymoon for a shotgun wedding orchestrated by the powers that be?
If NixonHaken wins next Tuesday, it will be because Jackley went Comey on us and effectively illustrated the Justice Department that Trump wants to make for America and that we apparently already have in Pierre….. And can we really offer, or afford, a honeymoon to such an occupational reality?
How do you know when Paul TenHaken is lying?
His eyebrows are moving.
Wait. L3wis….you expect to sit down with the new mayor and lay out your expectations for him? Does every citizen with a blog get that chance? How would that work exactly? The arrogance of this is astounding.
SFF- Why do I expect to sit down with him? Because he asked me to. A few weeks ago when I sat down with him for 45 minutes, we agreed we would speak again after the election if he won. We also texted back and forth about what we would discuss. Of course, Paul may have changed his mind and that is fine. But as I understood it, we had a mutual agreement.
Fair enough.
ThePopular,
He also blinks a lot too, like a Nixon sweat…. But he does wear a five clock shadow better than Dick, however…. Perhaps because it’s intentional….
I’m just sad that Mike’s poor wife will no longer be able to call herself “Mrs. Sioux Falls”.
A holding cell for Public Inputers. How about orange jumpsuits? Carnegie Hall is perfect for outside circular civil rights protests during council meetings. There could be many councilor lockouts and the mayor must come into the building via a helicopter landing on the roof.
You could tell Cindy Huether was sad this was all coming to an end, she showed up in blue jeans to hear her husband’s farewell speech at Carnegie!!