June 2020

South Dakota Secretary of State changes the recount manual one day after city of Sioux Falls election

So isn’t it interesting that the re-count manual was changed on June 3rd? The good news is that the manual that existed on the day of the election is what stands, not the changed one. I have not reviewed either manual, so I do not know the changes, but by law, the one that existed on June 2nd is that one that applies to the city election and recount. Curious what changes were made and the curious timing of those changes.

Do Lifeguards, Librarians and City Directors have vulnerable immune systems?

In a recent national medical study funded by a local government agency they found some startling results; public employees who work as librarians, lifeguards, city directors and managers have very poor immune systems. So poor, the common cold could knock they out for months, even have life-threatening results.

Dr. Bowlshyt who assisted with the study said, “We kept wondering why everyone else in the private sector was going back to work, and managing Covid infections just fine except this group of the workforce. Heck even firefighters, public works employees and police were having low cases.”

For a long time here in our own city and across the country there seemed to be a reluctance to open public libraries, swimming pools and local government offices, now we know why.

“Some have argued that this group may be arrogant, or paranoid for not going back to work like everyone else, like they are some special class of people. But that may not be the case,” continued Dr. Bowlshyt, “While we did find a high level of anxiety and paranoia with this group, we chalked it up to being public employees. But what we found in our medical study is that not only do some of them lack a backbone (said in a sarcastic tone) but they virtually have NO immune system either.”

This may explain why our city and many other cities refuse to send these people back to work. They may have had this medical data all along.

Economist Darrell Dewnuthin also weighed in on the economic side of paying these people while they ‘Joe Biden’ it in their basements, “Well, in reality, does this sector of people really work anyway? Have we noticed any change to the functionality of our cities while this sector of people have been absent? None to report. Cities have actually been saving money because they don’t have these facilities open.”

The only difference is that the taxpayers are still paying the wages and benefits associated with this group of people while they essentially ‘work’ from home. But it’s kind of hard to check out a book, swim in a pool or get a building permit from places that are closed. So what really have they been working on the past several months?

Local citizen advocate Pam Tanga thinks she knows the answer to that question, “What they have been doing before Covid hit. NOT MUCH!”

UPDATE: Sioux Falls Ethics Board meets Friday to discuss the ethics of some mysterious Mickey Mouse city official

UPDATE: After a brief public input session the BOE met for approximately 4 hours in executive session with the accused being represented by what seemed to be two attorneys who were in the room before the session started. As I understand it the person who filed the complaint and the accused attorneys left the meeting two hours into it and they met for another two hours then recessed. In other words the BOE did not emerge for a public vote which means they are still in discussions about the validity of the complaint. It seems odd to me that 5 people can’t make a simple decision in a matter of 4 hours. Of course we still don’t know who Mr. Mouse is, and we don’t even know what the complaint is. Will we ever know? The BOE of course will have to reschedule a later time to finish deliberations. Who knows when that will be?

Another interesting tidbit is that one of the attorneys representing the accused seems to be the same person representing the Jensen camp in the re-count next week. Of course, this is not surprising since there probably isn’t a lot of attorneys out there willing to wade into the waters of election recounts and ethics complaints.

First, let’s pretend for a minute that Mickey Mouse works for the city, and let’s just say, Mr. Mouse took a trip paid for by a partisan group. Then let’s say that this same Mr. Mouse already had a violation thrown out on a technicality, which cost taxpayers in outside counsel $3,750. Then let’s say the city council met last night to approve another expenditure for Mr. Mouse from the SAME law firm that could not exceed $7,500. But for some reason none of us seem to know who Mr. Mouse is? Could we assume that the first Mr. Mouse is the same Mr. Mouse that is being looked at a 2nd time around? Or could it be his friend Donald Duck? Or maybe it is from another department? Maybe Mr. Pooh. Or Waldo? Or the Grinch? Oh, it’s probably Rat Fink!

Here is my take. If you are a city official, and an ethics complaint is filed against you, and you think your are innocent, why hide behind confidentiality? As Porky Pig would say, ‘That’s all Folks!’