A friend asked their banker recently an interesting question (the bank is a national chain that has several branches in SF). They brought up Alex Jensen running for city council and being a business banker for First Premier and asked if their bank would allow this? He said, ‘Absolutely NOT’. He saw it as a major conflict of interest especially if the bank was seeking to do business with the city. Currently First Premier has an exclusive contract with the city of Sioux Falls. They used to spread the city’s accounts around to several banks in town, but the last mayor ended that.
Finance Director Pritchett has suggested though that a new RFP should be probably put out. Yah think?
When are the naming rights for the EC up for renewal? …. What’s #Alex!’s position on that one, too?
I see the most recent First Premier TV ad doesn’t show #Alex!. That’s probably a good idea, huh? Cuz a guy, or a clique, doesn’t want to overplay things.
I agree with his assessment.
While I don’t think that the City should legally bar them from running, I think that the bank shouldn’t allow him to run as an employee. It’s a violation of professional ethics and is an invitation for local, state, and federal scrutiny.
I GUESS if he were to recuse himself from any votes that directly or indirectly involve First Primer or any other bank or related business, and only did business banking with businesses that were NOT in the city of Sioux Falls…
So if he skips between 1/3 and 1/2 of the votes by the city and handicaps his career by dropping any client who works in the state’s largest city, that might work.
Yeah – that’s not going to happen.
the difference between a first premier and a wells fargo, is that fp wants to control the entire state, so they hand pick their candidates.