UPDATE: Mayor TenHaken’s PAC dumps $17,500 into Dr. Sarah Cole’s Campaign

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Bought and paid for.

That was my argument all along with Cole’s candidacy. A person who hasn’t bothered to vote in a local election the entire time she has lived here (another story our incredibly inept local media never touched). It’s one thing for the mayor to endorse a candidate running against an incumbent, it’s whole other ball of wax to dump this amount of money (after the final financial disclosure before the election) towards the challenger.

You have to be one major bitter, vengeful, vindictive person to go above and beyond to eliminate an incumbent, who ironically voted for almost 99% of the mayor’s policies.

Notice how the listing of the PAC is also improper (it should be Next Generation Leadership PAC). It is also concerning that the PAC itself has yet to file their July financial report. Yesterday at 5 PM was the deadline.

You will also notice that Cole spent almost $23K on advertising and over $5k on consulting. Ironically, Rich Merkouris almost spent the exact same amount on advertising. Cole never voted in a municipal election before. She never raised her own campaign funds and it appears she had little to do with running the campaign.

UPDATE: I did find the PAC’s filings on the SOS website. The original filing was in May and an amended one in June. It is pretty clear that the entities and individuals who gave to the PAC knew exactly where the money was going;

Mayor TenHaken’s PAC hosting a Fundraiser for his Mayoral Campaign

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I guess I can’t even ask the question, but I will, since I am baffled, ‘What is the legality of this?’

I am not saying this violates any campaign finance laws, I’m saying I don’t know. But it certainly raises an eyebrow, you know, like when toddlers each give you a $1,000.

So Poops’ Next Generation PAC is holding a fundraiser for Paul’s Mayoral Campaign. Why wouldn’t Paul’s mayoral campaign just hold a fundraiser for itself? The only inkling I have is that Paul is also trying to raise money for the PAC so he can hand it over to council candidates since he will virtually have NO big name challengers as Mayor (sorry David 🙂

  1. Raise money under the guise of mayoral candidate, 2. Give that money to anti-populist authoritarian city council candidates, 3. Rinse and repeat your last 4 years, 4. Scott is speculating from his rear, once again.

I will NOT be attending, but I’m sure I will have plenty of foot soldier reports of the event.

Worried about having money left over from a campaign? Raise only what you need.

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It was no surprise to hear our esteemed mayor complain about campaign finance rules and how he had money left over;

“It created a lot of unnecessary paperwork for me. It’s a huge pain in the you know what,” he said recently of why he opted to create a PAC instead of giving it away. “And I don’t want to give it away because I may run again.”

Remember, this is coming from the guy who skirted fundraising rules by taking money from toddlers, was doxxing people who were critical of Marion Mike Rounds’ campaign, and played musical servers for Pitty Patt when he was trying to hide from unethical behavior. If you are so concerned about all this left over money, maybe you should spend it, or raise less.

I have helped with many successful local campaigns that have literally ran on fumes and were in debt at the end. If you have money in your campaign chest, you spend every last penny up until the day of the election. That’s good planning, strategy and the responsible thing to do towards your donors. They give you the money to SPEND, not to sit on it for 4 years. I would think a communications guy who helped with marketing for many campaigns would know this.

There is a great quote by car culture artist, Von Dutch that I actually framed and hangs on a wall in my house;

I make a point of staying right at the edge of poverty. I don’t have a pair of pants without a hole in them, and the only pair of boots I have are on my feet. I don’t mess around with unnecessary stuff, so I don’t need much money.  I believe it’s meant to be that way.  There’s a ‘struggle’ you have to go through, and if you make a lot of money it doesn’t make the ‘struggle’ go away.  It just makes it more complicated. If you keep poor, the struggle is simple“. 

I love this quote, because Dutch is essentially saying, Money is bad and stay modest. I find it frustrating and comical that the mayor who just got back from a mission trip is complaining he has too much campaign money left over. Oh, the irony, Selfie Paul.

I also think that when this comes to a 2nd reading there will be some amendments thrown in to help certain people running for city council this time around. I recommend to avoid the appearance of benefitting certain candidates in this city election cycle, they defer the implementation of this ordinance until July 1st. The fireworks and debate on this item is going to be fun to watch.

T Denny throws John Paulson a Hail Mary before the municipal election

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hail

Now that most of the financial reports are up for the council candidates, I can do a review of them. Nothing really glaring in the reports except that recently appointed planning commission member John Paulson received one last whopper donation of $1,000 from T. Denny right before election day (the max an individual can give within a period of time). Should have just saved his money for another fancy hat for the Carneval Celebration. Well at least he did win a volunteer position on the rubber stamp committee.

Speaking of the Planning Commission, looks like the council may be throwing the Lacey Park project back at them for doing such a lousy job of review to begin with. Lloyd companies will be asking for a deferral tonight to September 13, but that may not cut it. Should be an interesting debate tonight at the council meeting.

Is the group opposed to after Labor Day Start blatantly breaking campaign laws?

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The State Law is pretty clear;

Universal Citation: SD Codified L § 12-27-20 (through 2012)

12-27-20. Expenditure of public funds to influence election outcome prohibited. The state, an agency of the state, and the governing body of a county, municipality, or other political subdivision of the state may not expend or permit the expenditure of public funds for the purpose of influencing the nomination or election of any candidate, or for the petitioning of a ballot question on the ballot or the adoption or defeat of any ballot question. This section may not be construed to limit the freedom of speech of any officer or employee of the state or such political subdivisions in his or her personal capacity. This section does not prohibit the state, its agencies, or the governing body of any political subdivision of the state from presenting factual information solely for the purpose of educating the voters on a ballot question.

Source: SL 2007, ch 80, § 20.

You can’t use district property maintained by taxpayers to promote your cause. If your parents want to hold a party at their house after school hours, that is perfectly legal. Does Roosevelt HS have any civics teachers that have a clue, or for that matter administrators? Geezsch!

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Maybe this is what they are teaching in government class at Roosevelt HS.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHnnsFeJBL8[/youtube]