November 2022

Noem bans Chinese owned TikTok

It’s about those pesky communists;

“South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us,” Noem said in a statement. “The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform.”

Of course, our mayor is still on his ‘save the kids’ campaign he must be carrying over from the anti-IM 27 campaign;

“This app needs more federal scrutiny to ensure our kids (and national security) are protected,” TenHaken wrote on social media.

Okay, why stop there?

• Why not BAN state government from purchasing any products made in China?

• Why not BAN any 5G antenna equipment from China?

• Why not BAN farmland or any property owned by Chinese investors? Or businesses (Like Smithfields)

This is more huff and puff and smoke blowing from the biggest offenders. Hypocrisy at it’s best. Now let’s go fight homeless cannabis use, the real problem ravaging our state ;(

Hospital Record Data Breach

I found this DakotaNewsNow story to be missing some important details;

A letter sent out by AAA Collections is informing many that their name and Social Security numbers could be compromised. The data breach stems from a period of three days in early September when the company’s computer system was compromised. By the time it was found and stopped, documents containing names and Social Security Numbers were copied. South Dakota law requires any large breach to be reported to the Attorney General’s office, as well as notices sent out to anyone that might have been affected.

• Who owns AAA? The company started in 1965 and at one point I think it changed hands between hospitals and a bank. I’m don’t know who owns them now.

• What hospitals/clinics were affected? Avera? Sanford? specialty hospitals? Falls Community Health? Why didn’t any of these institutions send out letters?

• Were laws broken about when they needed to inform clients? Is AAA responsible or the other institutions? It’s been around 90 days since the event took place, I believe they only had 60 days to inform clients.

I have heard from several people who got the letter. One of them is a patient at Falls Community Health. When did the city/county know, and when were they going to inform patients?

The speculation as to why this took so long was that AAA was trying to fix it internally hoping to avoid a disaster but that didn’t go so well.

Either way, I’m not sure why any scammer would want the Social Security numbers of people with bad credit.

Jesus Snowplows invade the South Dakota State Capital, sorta

When I started reading this article, it reminded me of the Jesus Snowplows in Sioux Falls (there are 2 this year).

That’s because several chairs in the committee room where the votes took place were adorned with holy crosses ahead of the meeting.

And now, the well-intended gesture by Sioux Falls Rep. Sue Peterson and others is drawing the attention of the South Dakota Legislature’s Executive Board, which will consider if action is necessary should the oil substance used to make the markings be unable to be removed.

When are these politicians going to figure out they can’t use taxpayer funded property as if it were their church? But there are other issues besides separation of church and state;

“We were simply praying and blessing the room in which leadership elections were going to be held,” she added (Sue Peterson). “It appears that someone is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill and shame me for my Christian faith.”

Even if you ignore Sue’s little Jesus moment, she also may have damaged taxpayer property, and she could be charged with a crime.

There is nothing wrong with a legislator having faith in a religion, there is also nothing wrong with them praying before a meeting, I actually support an invocation (invented by Ben Franklin, a deist). I wouldn’t even of cared if she passed out New Testaments at the meeting, BUT, you cannot defile or decorate taxpayer owned property with religious symbolism (or any symbolism) BECAUSE WE OWN IT!

I think a fitting punishment would be making Sue lick the crosses off the chairs. Maybe she could bring her son Robert who has been actively licking his wounds after the slaughterhouse ordinance failed.

Sioux Falls City Council Informational Meeting

Next week the city council has decided to tackle three big topics all in one game;

• Washington Pavilion Management Agreement Renewal by Shawn Pritchett, Finance Director

(two questions councilors need to ask; 1) what is the current compensation of the CEO, Darrin Smith & 2) Why is there $5.2 million dollars in the management companies savings account? Also curious is how that savings account jumped $2.2 million in one year? I will be honest with you, I think it is wonderful the Pavilion is building such an account, but it should be an endowment. And why do we continue to subsidize them operationally? I don’t take issue with maintenance costs, because as taxpayers, we own the joint, but after over 20 years, when will it become the place for ‘EVERYBODY’?)

• Homeless Task Force Report by Council Member Rich Merkouris Here is a simple breakdown from The Dakota Scout (and me);

• $500,000 – Homeless engagement

The recommendation calls for entering into a contract with a third party on a two-year pilot project referred to as a street outreach team.

The cost estimate of $500,000 includes $300,000 in the first year and another $200,000 the second.

(This is a good step forward, BUT, the SFPD also needs to have officers on follows to learn from this. I guess it has been successful in Rapid City.)

• $125,000 – Public education

The task force wants to tap into the existing nonprofits already working in the social services arena to develop a public education campaign that teaches area residents about the challenges of homelessness, how it can be addressed and how to deal with panhandling.

(I personally think it is ludicrous to have to educate people about panhandling and homelessness, BUT, before I lived in a NW coastal city in my teens, I knew very little about these things so it is merited, BUT, the local media, print, radio and TV need to step up and just do this out of the goodness of their hearts.)

•$352,000 – Rally around Network of Care

A grant program could be created to help more nonprofits and other social service agencies become partners in the Helpline Center’s Network of Care, which was created in 2015 to give social service agencies a mechanism to connect with each other in aiding clients.

Of that $352,000, $250,000 would specifically be used to fund the grant program, while the task force is calling for an additional $102,000 directly for the Helpline Center “for HIPAA compliance,” the recommendation reads.

(This is a wonderful software(?) program, the issue I have is the cost. If every service registered with this program used it, wouldn’t that bring the cost down? A good question to ask.)

• $500,000+ – ‘Housing First wraparound services’

The City Council will be asked to create a joint committee with the Minnehaha County Commission to explore grant funding opportunities for new properties and partnerships that could lead to additional housing stability with associated programming for employment and substance abuse recovery support.

While there’s no finite estimate on what it might cost, Merkouris speculated it could be anywhere from $500,000 to as much as the Council and county might be willing dedicate to the plan.

(I have argued from the beginning that this would be costly, BUT we need a plan to look at before throwing money at it. There are zoning laws and regs we could change to force developers to provide this kind of housing which would cost taxpayers $0.)

• SiouxFalls.org Website Redesign by Allie Hartzler, Communications and Culture Officer; and Justine Murtha, Digital Communications Manager;

• siouxfalls.org was last redesigned in 2016.
• Each month, the website has more than 70,000 monthly users, with 60% of users visiting on mobile devices.
• More than 4,800 pages, 9,000 documents, and 6,000 images* exist today.
• In June 2022, the City selected Granicus as a partner for the redesign.

(This is long overdue, and I feel sorry for Allie for getting this dumped in her lap, and the newly hired(?) Digital Communications Manager. But I also argue that this isn’t rocket science. The internet has been around for 30 years, web programming is mostly on auto-pilot and we can learn from other cities, like Omaha, who has a great city website. And we certainly should NOT be hiring a company that has f’kup our website and council agendas for years. It could be done internally by a very capable IT department (would have been a great work at home Covid project) but once again we are jobbing it out.)