Audit

Is Rolfing returning to council chambers next week to defend his stupid election rule?

The rumor from city hall moles is that former councilor Tex Golfing (Rex Rolfing) will be returning to Carnegie to defend his stupid runoff rule. I wonder if he will bring his T-Bone gavel and hammer the gavel puck until it flys thru the air again? What a guy. I encourage anyone testifying to change the rule back to 34% plurality to wear an outrageous, loud, large hats, Rolfing loves hats at public input!

You know where I stand, simple plurality should be enough, and 34% is fine with me. There are some other points;

• While in a general election where no candidate in a particular race gets 50+1 normally the candidate who gets the most votes in the general gets fewer votes in the runoff because the turnout is lower. So how is getting a lower percentage of votes but a higher number of votes in the general any different then getting fewer votes in the runoff but a higher percentage? It’s an exercise in insanity, and it costs us (even though I never have liked the argument of cost savings when it comes to elections, doesn’t matter).

• Councilors Spellerberg and Sigette got ZERO votes (0%) and they are sitting on the dais. Why? Because they filled out the paperwork and followed the rules and protocol. So are they unqualified since NO ONE voted for them? Not at all. They did the work, doesn’t matter how many people voted for them.

• Also, if the runoff rule applied to the presidential election, Harris and Trump would have been in a runoff (Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote). So is Trump illegitimate (sure for other reasons) but he followed the election rules and he won, and just because he didn’t get 50+1 doesn’t persuade me he didn’t win fairly.

• It also edges out the grassroots candidates because of fund raising, or as Tim Stanga said last night during public input, “It gives us well funded deer in headlight candidates.” I think I know who he was referring to, but I won’t beat that dead horse, I mean deer.

The rule has only been used once since it was implemented 8 years ago and it was in the recent election. I disagree with Jordan Deffenbaugh’s testimony that runoffs help grassroots candidates, they do NOT. As a grassroots candidate you have to hit it hard and early, that is the secret, the longer the campaign the more you will be outspent.

They need to ditch this asinine rule it get us back to sanity with our elections.

I think only 3 councilors support changing it back, but it will take 6 votes to protect it from a mayoral veto, don’t see that happening.

UPDATE ON $100 MILLION IN PROFESSIONAL CONTRACTS WITHOUT RFP’S

My city hall moles have been telling me it is much worse then just leaving out the RFPs, one of the main reasons these contractors are being picked without RFPs because over 50% of them are out of state companies that have direct competition in Sioux Falls (in other words we have the local contractors to do the work). So why is hiring a local professional contractor better then out of state? First off, if something goes haywire, easier to sue. Secondly, local contractors hire local people and that profit is recirculated in the community. In other words when your taxdollars pay for a service, that money paid to the provider gets recirculated in the town. When you use an out of state contractor, that goes straight out the door. That’s why the Denty is a money vaccum. Another reason to use non-RFP out-of-state contractors is to cover up work the city may be doing that they don’t want the constituents to know about. When you put out an RFP for a repair job, people start asking questions, you know like damaged roofs on city owned buildings. The audit committee needs to do a full audit of all out-of-state, non-RFP, professional contracts that have been granted over the past 7 years.

Leah Anderson’s Dreams came true last night

The rumor on the ground by poll workers was there was a lot of hand counting going on last night because of a major logistical error on Leah’s part. She didn’t stock all the polling places very well and when they ran out of regular ballots, voters who were already waiting had to fill out sample ballots and sign an affidavit, those all go thru the resolution board and have to be hand counted. I heard it happened at three major polling places. So she got what she wanted, a hand job . . . I mean hand count.

These are the kind of morons running our state

Want to know why South Dakota is dead last in almost every economic category, because we have morons like this running our state government.

While I understand State Auditor Rich Saddass is a proud Repug, why would you share this stupid meme that has been around for years! I also like how the quote perfectly describes Donny T., you know the convicted felon, rapist, adulterer, and racist running for president.

Instead of sharing awful memes that have been around for years, maybe you need to do your job and turn over Noem’s nail and hair salon receipts. The story in Pierre is that the AG told Saddass turn them over because he had no legal authority to hide them from the public. While I am not sure if that convo took place, we know Mr. Jackboots isn’t a big fan of Noem ever since she handed him his ass in the primaries after he tried to cover up sexual harassment at the DCI.

While some may think there is a tropical island that is actually floating garbage, the real GARBAGE PIT is in Pierre.

When I worked at the Pavilion, the comedian Carrot Top came and when he was setting up his props on stage before the show he asked if I could help him with a punchline. He asked me, “What is the most white trash city in South Dakota?” I laughed and said, “That list is very long sir.” He says, “C’mon, there has to be a town that is the most white trash.” I giggled and said, “Fort Pierre.” He used the punchline and it got gobs of laughs.

UPDATE: Internal audit has a busy schedule

UPDATE: This meeting is worth the re-watch. One of the committee members asked why they were NOT auditing the City Attorney’s office, because as he put it, ‘it is on the heat map’ which means it is a critical department to audit because it has been in a long time. So audit chair, councilor David Barranco asked our ONLY internal auditor, Ryan, what the process is to get this audit on the 3 year schedule. Ryan basically said he must put in a request with him and then he would have to amend that schedule and it would have to be amended by the committee at a future meeting. In other words, he wasn’t looking for more work (even though our internal auditor only collects evidence and passes it onto our outside counsel). So Barranco with the urging of another member decided to amend the schedule right there and throw it on the agenda. So with one quick motion and vote it will be included on the audit schedule. It was a good example of government cutting thru the crap and getting something done instead of playing reindeer games.

A lot to accomplish in 3 years when you only have ONE employee . . . oh, and they are using outside sources, because you know, the best way to conduct an INTERNAL audit is to use OUTSIDE sources 🙁

Screenshot

If you got sometin’ to say, say it to my face

Elected officials should avoid social media. I used to tell this to Theresa all the time. I will defend Leah on one point; She is an elected official and if she wants to play on TurdBook all day, that is her deal, and they ain’t much you can do about it. Mayor Munson used to say, “Mayor is 24/7, 365 day a year job.” In other words, as an elected official you are always on duty.