Look at at this change to policies, (page 13) they are trying to find cover from their Constitutional duties;
Robert’s is a guideline on how to run a meeting, but those RULES do not supersede the 1st Amendment or US Constitution. Like I told the council last Tuesday (FF: 1:10) these are consideration rules that the public AND the council should use as a guideline to the meetings, but when it comes to PUBLIC INPUT anything besides violent threats is allowable and limiting speakers is blatant censorship and little else.
Instead of spending so much time trying to silence the public, why don’t you talk to us? The only time I see councilors is at Carnegie, makes you wonder if some of them are playing Marshall Selberg Musical Districts on us? Speaking of that crooked fella, still wondering why all the councilors and mayor shirked their responsibility of managing their own? Selberg should have been booted from the council and he should have been charged, but not these guys, circle the f’ing wagons.
A good attorney would have told you, you can’t win. So why didn’t the same attorney tell you to file NEW charges in a NEW case?! I have said this is NOT about state law and filing deadlines this is about a MASSIVE conflict of interest. Every single elected official on that dais, including Mayor Poops, received donations and campaign help from the Skab’s main investor, Matt Paulson, then they voted to GIVE a contract to the same person who donated to their campaigns. But it gets even better, they all knew Matt and his Peach colored Lambo SUV was an investor in the Skab before the vote, but the public didn’t know. Probably one of the most unethical and corrupt votes I have ever seen the council take. Quid pro Quo. How can anyone TRUST the council to make a decision based on fairness from now on? They can’t. And here is the kicker, the Argus has more circulation and reach then the Skab, so this tells me the decision by the councilors was based on bias and not facts. I will say it again, I don’t think either paper should have the notices, a gigantic waste of tax dollars. You can see all the notices to your heart’s delight for free online and if you don’t know what the internet is you can always go down to the clerk’s office and get a copy. So wasteful, but not surprising since our state legislature is ran by the stupidest people imaginable. Still waiting for ETC. or 605 Magazine to apply for the notices. I wonder if the AL counsel even knows what a conflict of interest is . . . remember when Randall Beck was gunning for the Denty?
Ironically, if the AL would have reached out I could have provided them evidence of the corruption and lies with some very colorful text messages from one of the Skab owners(?). To which he sent me even more nasty messages before I had to block him. He’s a real Prickly Pear. Maybe the council pricked the Skab because of their enormous professionalism 🙂 and almost Pulitzer Prize winning journalism in uncovering Noem’s hair salon receipts.
Augustana has wiped the event from their yearly schedule, but I did ascertain this promotional piece;
What I am hearing is that she abruptly cancelled the meeting and the reasons given are varied rumors, so I won’t list them, but FIRST I am curious if the event WAS cancelled and if so, WHY and by WHO?
These clowns were hosting the event, so it was a good possibility they may have canceled it due to student protests. But Johnson is known for her thin skin and paranoia around ‘liberals trying to get her.’ I’m guessing someone from the student body council told them to go to Heck (though if I was a student I totally would have allowed it and showed up to watch the comedy show and challenge the fools during Q & A. The best way to solve our political discourse in this country is to talk to each other, share our views and correct and critique each other. Things won’t improve if we stay in our own bullpens. That is my biggest complaint about young libs, they constantly preach to the choir. Expand your horizons. I worked on several political campaigns and majority of them were Republicans because I believed in their policy ideas. I heard a quote from Tim Johnson today (RIP) “Neither party has an advantage on good ideas or bad ideas.”)
Maybe I was the setup? I spoke at the informational meeting* today during public input. Since there was nothing on the agenda except more executive sessions I chose to speak about item #4 on the agenda, which was PUBLIC COMMENT. I basically informed them that council meeting rules don’t supersede the US Constitution’s 1st Amendment and they need to stop cutting people off. I directed my comments at the entire council, not just chair Soehl. I told them they need to STOP the chair if they are wrongfully cutting people off. I think the council needs a crash course in the 1st Amendment and Public Input, and would even be willing to give my taxdollars to school them. They don’t seem to understand who controls the government, it’s not them, it’s us.
Well the mayor must be off at a jumping jacks convention because Curtis decided to chair the next regular meeting (FF: 41:00) and he got another earful about how they fail to listen to constituents and when they have no discussion on unanimous votes it tells the public you are making decisions before the meeting in private conversations (heck, the school board has been doing that for decades!)
Though some of the people who spoke tonight have shady pasts (that was an interesting google search 🙁 they made valuable points about our 1st Amendment rights and how ineffective and thin skinned our current council is, and the longer termed members are the worst of the lot!
This council better buck up fast and take control of the public’s meetings, because it is turning into a real circus and the dancing bears are the council.
*The meeting hasn’t posted yet because they were having ‘technical’ issues. These same issues pop up every couple of weeks for the past decade or more. You would think the city IT department would have figured this out already?! I am pretty damn sure they are censoring certain things and that is why it happens so often. I mean, someone can’t f’up that much unless it is on purpose.
One of the public inputers, Bruce Head told us he is suing the city over civil rights. Here is a link to the filing.
Remember the game of connect the dots? We will get to that in a moment.
It all started with a thot I had Friday night while listening to announcements from the Levitt stage.
Is Matt Paulson trying to build a local media empire to influence city hall policy even more?
It all started over a year ago when a local (seasoned) journalist told me that there are plans in the works to combine all the small local independent or semi-independent media outlets and freelancers into one organization, or at least under an umbrella of cooperation. I don’t need to list these orgs, if you read this blog, you read their sites also. This plan was later confirmed to me from another associate, but told me the plan still has some kinks in it and setbacks. I didn’t blog about this because frankly when I first heard it, I was rooting for them and said it was a great idea, let’s just see if it will work.
While many of these indies have talent, they don’t have a lot of capital, they need outside investors to make this work and they need to sell a butt load of advertising to pay everyone’s salaries.
Then walks in Matt Paulson.
But let’s play that game of ‘connect the dots’ I spoke about earlier;
• Matt Paulson has funded every campaign of all of the current 8 councilors and the mayor and many past councilors.
• Jodi Schwan leaves the Argus to start her own business website.
• Patrick Lalley, Reposa, Ellis and Sneve leave the Argus to start their own independent sites, with a small kink, Market Dweebs owner, Matt Paulson has quietly been investing in the Dakota Scout, something the council and the SOS failed to inform the public about.
• In one of the most unethical moves by city council they approve the Dakota Scout contract for legals without releasing the investors names.
• I learned Friday night at the Levitt that Paulson has hired a local popular TV anchor to work at Market Dweeb.
I’m not sure what shoe will drop next but if I were KELOLAND, DAKOTANEWS or the Argus, (nevermind, they are already a sunken ship), I would be nervous about my advertising dollars and the whole integrity of the media locally. While I like local independent journalists, I’m not sure I care for their investors, who seem to be buying up city hall candidates and now local journalists so he can control the narrative even more.
Art censoring little . . .
As a community we should be very nervous and cautious of how this potential media merger will occur, but like everything else this Dweeb touches, it will all be done in the dark of the night, because that’s how the fourth estate does things these days.
Still waiting for my offer Matt 🙂 The Scab could really use a cartoonist that used a different medium besides crayons.
l3wis 
