Daily Affirmation

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What a week of craziness in Sioux Falls. Most of what I am going to talk about deserves a full blog post, but I decided more of a snark;

• Classified documents at Carnegie Town Hall. Last night a constituent told me they showed up to the city council meeting and went to the entry podium to collect the agenda. To their surprise there was a stack of legal documents sitting on the podium. They suspected they were left there accidentally and turned them over to the council.

At least they didn’t find them crumpled up in the toilet.

• The Sioux Falls City Council hires a new city clerk. Mr. Washington was hired Tuesday night by the council. Mr. Washington was NOT in attendance (he lives in Rapid City) but I was at least expecting a phone in to answer a few benign questions. Nope. Council Chair Selberg said he was a great guy and they voted for him. The council did have a private interview with Mr. Washington but it would have been nice to get an intro to the public.

• 1st Amendment Minnehaha County case taking to long to decide. Call me old school, but when I read the 1st Amendment it is not to hard to figure out, especially this line;

to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I’m puzzled why it would take so long for a Federal Judge to make such an easy decision? It will be interesting to see what is carved out for the county, because it doesn’t take over 20 days to figure out our civil rights.

• Minnehaha County Commissioners bail on carbon setbacks. Not surprising the new bought and paid for MCC has decided that property owners only get 300 feet to save themselves from an exploding pipeline. How thoughtful of them. I still concede that in 10 years most hazardous pipelines are moth balled as we realize the benefits and cost saving measures of wind, solar and nuclear. This is a money making scheme and always has been.

• Pride Festival this weekend! The good news is we get to celebrate LOVE this weekend, the sad part is there are still elected officials in our community who refuse to acknowledge that love. F’k em! They would ruin the party anyway!

• YIELD FOR BICYCLISTS! I was in three close calls this week, one was my fault, but I encourage drivers to always be aware of your surroundings and look for pedestrians, motorcycles and bicyclists. I also encourage bicyclists to be sharp when riding and yield twice.

• Rapid City gets a new mayor! So this former Veteran, Banker, Alderman and current Pastor wants to be the next mayor of Rapid City. Awesome! I still liked the O’SHT face on him when he had his first presser. He’s going to figure it out. Well if you are so inclined to share your secret recipes, can you pass them on to our mayor? You can usually catch him doing calisthenics with kids at one of our private Sioux Falls Christian schools. I know, super weird.

• Show me the money! Once again city officials had no problem taking money from our old father time and faux namesake of our city. Gifts are Gifts but one has to wonder about funding a spray park for kids with a selfie photo booth? Not to mention a project that has ballooned from around $4 million to four times that. Not sure why we need Disneyland at Falls Park?

The ‘donations’ always crack me up. They are paying for ADDITIONAL infrastructure that we have to maintain for decades as taxpayers. Not sure what the benefit is? It’s kind of like being handed your dream car for free (mine is the Ferrari Dino) but you have to maintain it, pay the taxes and fees on it, store it and insure it. I will stick with my Civic.

• More rail traffic in Sioux Falls. I have virtually given up moving the trains out of Sioux Falls, but what troubles me is that citizens have no avenue of addressing this locally, statewide or Federally. Ironically, roadblocks have been systematically setup over decades by the vicious control by our railroads.

Stehly; It’s about the petitioner’s right, not the issue

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Former Sioux Falls City Councilor, Theresa Stehly addressed the Minnehaha County Commission during public input today (FF 1:02). Stehly points out that it doesn’t matter if you are for or against an issue, you should still support people’s right to petition.

She also wondered why the auditor and the MCC hasn’t been more helpful helping citizens petition.

Minnehaha County Commission will cave on 1st Amendment case

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As I predicted the policy banning petitioners from certain areas of the courthouse grounds was unconstitutional, and a Federal judge agrees for now;

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a policy recently approved by the Minnehaha County Commission that would have restricted where petition circulators could gather signatures near two county buildings in downtown Sioux Falls.

I also predict the commission will cave on the lawsuit and this will never make the light of day in a courtroom. Unlike the city, the county isn’t real keen on fighting lawsuits, especially ones that have the constitution on their side.

While I do know the name of the former Republican Legislator who pushed a petitioner, I am keeping that under wraps for now just in case it becomes an issue in court.

Maybe our new auditor needs to read Kristi Noem’s book, because she could use some help in her second rodeo.

Will Governor Noem apologize to Biden and the DOJ over claims of hacking?

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It’s seems even Mr. HEIDELBERGER is wondering where the radio silence is from Noem and the supposed ‘hacking’;

Governor Noem has declined to comment on this dubious prosecution, but she made sure her taxpayer-funded lawyer, general counsel Katie Hruska, was in the courtroom yesterday, even though Hruska was not one of the prosecuting attorneys and even though Noem herself did not file the complaint that prompted this show.

So let’s review how adults handle situations like this;

• Dakota News Now did the right thing by terminating Mr. Goss

• The courts did the right thing by sentencing the case properly

• Mr. Goss did the right thing by apologizing to all involved parties

So my question is, will Noem do the right thing and apologize to the president and the DOJ for falsely accusing them of phone hacking?

Where you went wrong Mr. Goss is admitting ANY guilt. You just lost your street cred with the Pierre Country Clubbers.

Try not to wear gold watches when pleading your case

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Last night during the public input time at the council meeting Vitaliy Strizheus who owns an unfinished house the city is scheduled to demolish on Monday came to plead his case to the council and public. I have avoided posting about this because 1) I really don’t care about the lifestyles of the rich and famous of Sioux Falls and 2) I do not know the details of the case including accusations that the city is discriminating based on race and what Constitutional property rights he may have. The city has a track record on this after ignoring their own building codes and allowing an oversized mansion to be built in McKennan Park.

Hopefully a Federal judge will block the demolition so we can get a clearer understanding of what is going on. But taking 10 years to complete a home is unacceptable and there should be consequences. Not sure charging taxpayers $85K to demolish and all the litigation expenses is really beneficial to the defendant or the public. I think this could have been solved in a different manner. Why can’t the city just take the home and sell it on auction?

But what I found most intriguing is while this guy is begging the city to spare his home he dawns a gold watch. He should have taken a queue from this guy at last week’s public input complaining about the uselessness of the pothole hotline. Maybe Carhartt Kent had a gold watch under his coveralls but I am guessing NOT.