South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

l3wis

Marty Jackley Open Government Open Meetings South Dakotans State Funding State Legislature

South Dakota closed government, ripe with corruption

l3wis 1Comments

Our AG recently said that state government needs to be more transparent in the wake of all the rats stealing from the citizen coffers. If you think this is just a handful of bad actors, I can guarantee there are probably hundreds of state employees stealing from us. Why? Because, first off, it is RICH coming from a guy who helped cover up a DCI sexual harassment case, EB-5 and Gear-up. This is the guy promoting open government? LMFAO!

With one-party rule basically controlling most of the offices in South Dakota who is going to investigate wrong doings or lack of open government? Good question.

I keep telling people that OPEN government saves taxpayers money because it roots out unethical, fraudulent and corrupt actors. Open government is also more efficient because you don’t have to play the hiding secrets game so things get done much more quickly.

I don’t have much confidence in our AG telling us he is working towards a more open government, coming from a guy who has a Cummins Diesel engine attached to his paper shredder.

Downtown Sioux Falls Railroads Sioux Falls

What Quiet Zone?

l3wis 3Comments

So they put a quiet zone RR crossing east of the new $20 Million dollar Non-Unity 6th Street bridge. How they are ‘supposed’ to work is the arms come down, there is a bunch of flashing lights, etc. It is called a quiet zone because ideally the trains won’t blow their whistles anymore going thru this intersection. I have suggested we have them all over DTSF.

So I was sitting at the crossing last week on my bike, and a train was approaching, the lights started flashing to stop and the cross arms came down. Then right before the intersection the engine stopped, which is normal protocol. The lights were flashing and the bars were down, and guess what Leroy the conductor did, blaired his horn.

So what was the purpose of this very expensive crossing? (I believe it cost like $1 million to build with money coming from the city, the DOT and the railroad). So what was the purpose if the trains are going to continue to blow their whistles?

The railroads have been doing what they want to for around 150 years. Did they really think they care if this is a quiet zone? Apparently not.

Drinking Liberally Liberals Sioux Falls South Dakotans

Drinking Liberally (11/29/2024)

l3wis 10Comments

In Politics: Nationally: The Election is over and the wrong side won. Despite all the celebration on the Republican side however, nationally, as votes continue to roll in, it turns out that the Republican victory was very narrow and Trump himself received less than 50% of the popular vote, 49.83% and dropping as of this morning. The Republican margin in the US House of Representatives is extremely narrow too (220-214) and only the Republican gerrymandering in North Carolina and Florida with the partisan approval of the US Supreme Court produced their victory.

Unfortunately, the closeness of these races doesn’t change the fact that Republicans control all three branches of government (including a very partisan Supreme Court) for the first time since the late 1920’s, which, coincidentally, coincides with the date Republicans want to turn time back to. No social security, no department of education, no department of health and human services (if you need help, it is just proof God doesn’t like you). The election may have been close but the future will be hell for many and for most of us in the end.

In Politics: South Dakota: The one positive outcome of Trump’s election for South Dakotans is the promotion of our beauty queen Governor out of the State and into the Office of Homeland Security for the Trump administration. I have no idea what she will do there other than whatever bidding Trump desires at Homeland Security but she will prove to be good eye candy for Trump at Cabinet Meeting photo ops. At least she will not bother us in South Dakota any more. I pray (vigorously) the Senate approves her.

The South Dakota Democratic Party (SDDP) performed miserably in 2024 and lost two of its previous 11 seats in the 105 seat South Dakota Legislature. Marginally relevant before, South Dakota Democrats now are mostly irrelevant. If they continue on their current course they will quickly become absolutely irrelevant.

Their failure in 2024 was entirely foreseeable given the SDDP’s current Leadership’s focus on ideological purity rather than electoral success. Since their recall of their Chairperson Jennifer Slaight-Hansen last July for suggesting economic issues get greater emphasis than LGBTQ issues, the GOP has increased its voter registration plurality over the SDDP by 21,147 voters. The GOP now has 318,423 registered voters to the SDDP’s 146,204. In percentage terms, since the recall of Slaight-Hansen the GOP’s share of all South Dakota voters increased from 49.8% to 50.8% while the SDDP’s share decreased from 24.8% to 23.3%.

It is enough to turn a Democrat to drink. I think I will!

Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls snow removal Snowgates

UPDATE II: Where were the F’ing sanders today?!

l3wis 6Comments

UPDATE II: I guess the street fleet was out at 7:30 AM on Wednesday, FILLING POTHOLES! The only spots they sanded were bridges and after they left at 3:30 PM they were CALLED back at 4:30 PM to sand, and only a handful of drivers responded to the request. But hey, if you drive a public works truck in the parade of lights you are getting $60 bones an hour. Priorities folks. Priorities. I also heard and still trying to verify there was almost 90 traffic accidents on Wednesday. Surprising? NOT.

UPDATE: I was told the sanders were out at 7:30 AM on Wednesday. I would be curious how many because when I drove to work at 4 PM on Cliff Avenue, parts of 41st street and Minnesota were pure ice and packed snow and I didn’t see one single sander out.

I know I have complained about this before, but today was literally a Sh!t show. With the weather today being what is was I decided to drive my car. Bad decision. While I do have studded snow tires on my bike, I try to avoid riding in the dark when conditions are very icy, but I would have probably been safer on my bike. Normally it takes me about 20 minutes to commute to work (5 miles) it took me 30 minutes today in my car, not just because of the terrible condition of the streets but because multiple streets were closed due to accidents.

I get it, there really wasn’t a forecast for this event, but it shouldn’t matter, it is the END OF NOVEMBER! Those sanders should be ready at ALL TIMES!

I did see them out tonight at 9 PM. Thanks . . . dumbasses.

So besides the personal expenditures of folks vehicles being damaged, we have the police and fire respond to these incidents. And now we are paying NIGHT differential to sand the streets. The pennies the city may have saved by not sanding this morning when the event started doesn’t even come close to the amount being spent on responding to these accidents.

Is our Mayor that stupid?

Maybe so, but it also falls back on his lack of leadership. Dave Munson would have been on the horn to Galen Huber at 6 am sending out those sanders. Why? Because public safety should never have a price tag, it is a requirement of municipal government to provide these services thru the taxes we pay. Makes you wonder if the city is in such dire straights that they can’t even send sanders out? We have around $80 million in reserves. We could sand every road in the state for a year and still not spend it all.

I suggested to a councilor that the council write an ordinance that takes control of street plowing and sanding. Basically it would require the street department to act on their own when there is an event and craft the ordinance in a way that pretty much requires them to act immediately to any winter weather event and take that control away from the mayor.

Riverline District Sioux Falls

Riverline Committees has another executive session for second meeting

l3wis 0Comments

Still find it funny they are having a PUBLIC steering committee meeting with members of the public sitting on the committee but they can’t share this information with the rest of the public? These committee members are NOT employees of the city and are NOT elected, in other words their LEGAL STATUS to view documents in executive session is the same as ours . . . WE CANNOT view them so they shouldn’t be able to either. My assumption is in these executive sessions they are discussing the strategy on how to roll this out to the public. If you just look at the members of the committee you can tell their is NO NAYSAYERS in the group. I thought the whole purpose of the committee was to examine just exactly what is being proposed and to see if it will work. Why can’t that be done in public? Nothing is decided yet, as far as I am concerned these meetings should be public and let the public see what is being discussed AND RECORD THEM! This of course is not a surprise. One of the Committee Members and an all around bucket of sunshine, Jessie (Pins) Schmidt was on Turdbook defending the executive sessions saying that people get to talk during public input at the beginning. Talk about what? Speculating what you may discuss in the executive session? Like if a certain broker has a conflict of interest? Let’s face it folks, this administration is anti-open government and we will NEVER see any results from these meetings except a convention center being shoved down our throats with a tax increase to boot. Closed government costs taxpayers way to much, and this time it is going to cost us $400 million.

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