The city council appointed Vernon Brown tonight since we was the ONLY(?) nominee for Cole’s empty seat. I don’t take issue with Vernon’s appointment. While I disagreed with him on most everything on the council, he is NO dummy and he will be an asset to the council over the next 6 months. I would love to be a fly on the wall when Vernon expresses his discomfort with council leadership on how haphazardly the council and city government is being run now, and I hope Vernon acts more like a Private Investigator then a councilor over the next 6 months and reports back to the public, but I am NOT going to hold my breath. (for full disclosure I went to HS with Vernon’s wife and have known her family since I was a tike, her parents are the salt of the earth).
Nomination aside, Vernon approached this the way several other potential candidates did; professionally, so what I am going to say about council action tonight has NOTHING to do with Vernon’s character or ability to serve. He did everything right, and there are NO faults with him.
So where did the council f’ck up? Man, where to begin?
• They didn’t provide a singular contact to apply for nomination just that you had to kiss two councilor’s asses. In a functioning open government you have a direct source to apply for these nominations. This made it a CLOSED process and a 1st Amendment violation. The council didn’t even provide a direct contact to THEM! It is HYPOCRITICAL to complain about citizen participation in local government then when an opportunity presents itself you tell the public to GFThemselves. WOW!
• They only nominated ONE person. While Soehl expressed that several candidates applied (I know of at least 6 but he touched on clergy and business folks which were NOT on my radar). All the applicants should have been listed. Even Miranda ‘Lucy’ Basye thot there would be more nominees though I think her little statement was smoke and mirrors while we watch Charlie Brown lay on his back in pain.
• But where they really screwed the pooch happened several weeks ago when Council Chair Rich Merkouris said in a live presser that he wouldn’t nominate anyone who was running for office in next year’s city election. This is a CLEAR violation of charter. There are ONLY TWO requirements to be on city council; You must be 18 years of age and a resident of Sioux Falls for the past 6 months. There are NO other requirements!!!!!! He is violating charter and the 1st Amendment!
I knew this process was Sh!t from the beginning, and I feel sorry for the appointee who got appointed on a false premise. But this is how we do govmint’ in Sux.