Gotta love my city hall moles, I guess Christine has been running her gums about challenging Paul in the halls of city gov. I’m still on the fence, 1) I don’t think she is dumb enough to challenge a popular incumbent, BUT, 2) I also think he will bail and she will be waiting in the wings.
I really believe he has had it with a real job making a paltry wage and I think she is salivating at the opportunity. But if they go head on head, this could be the most entertaining mayoral race in a long time.
Maybe we should throw Stehly and Starr in the ring? Let’s have a full on Sh!t show!
UPDATE: A South DaCola foot soldier told me today that they heard an interview where Paul said he intends to run for a 2nd term as long as his COS, Erica Beck, is on board and she said she would stay on. I had to chuckle a bit, because Paul has to keep her on board if he serves a 2nd term, because she is the one running the city.
With about a year away from the 2022 municipal elections I’m sure most people have other things on their mind. For instance, Curt Soehl is also up for re-election as the Central District councilor, but he doesn’t have to announce for awhile, and I think that race will be quite crowded.
It seems strange to me that Paul hasn’t said one way or another if he is running again. He wouldn’t need some big news conference, just a simple press release saying he will or will not run again. At the very least, just to raise money.
If I was a betting man, my guess is that he will seek a 2nd term AND will beat his closest competitor in a landslide. I also think Paul knows the job is gravy train, that is why he pays his COS $177K a year to run the city for him while he makes supposed side developer deals with inside information. It’s win-win for everyone.
If he decides to NOT run again, my guess is there would be a long list of people that would think about running like Huether, Erickson, Neitzert, Jamison and Stehly.
If Paul does announce he is running I’m not sure if he will have any serious contenders, and it will sure be fun watching him debate David Z.
Kelby Krabbenhoft and Sanford Health have agreed to part ways, Sanford announced in a news release at about 5:45 p.m. today.
This is no surprise, I have been hearing for months from Sanford employees that Kelby actually partially retired last Fall but was staying on basically for consulting for the transition to Intermountain Health. Not sure how much of that is true, but you will remember last Fall was when a lot of executives were leaving and an investigation into Denny Sanford was being done. No charges have been filed.
But as I was watching the Sioux Falls City Council Informational meeting tonight, I found it ironic that one of the city councilors who voted against a mask mandate and has admitted to having covid couldn’t even figure out how to wear a mask (you need to cover you mouth AND nose.)
Masks! We don’t need no stinking masks!
While she did pull it up a few times she kept pulling it down while talking. Scientists have said that masks actually do work, BUT you need to wear them properly and you have to have 100% compliance. Maybe Christine felt like Kelby that now that she has some kind of magical immunity she didn’t have to wear the mask?
Argus reporter Ellis said it best when talking about Sioux Falls City Government, “Amateur Hour.”
As I suspected after Christine brought this up in the council meeting Tuesday night, there really is no effort to pause the program called ‘Sioux Falls Alive’. Not only is the website still chugging away but I saw an electronic billboard today (you know the kind you can turn off like a light switch) promoting the program. I have also heard from DaCola Foot Soldiers that still blow their money on cable TV the ads are still playing.
To be fair, though it grinds me, Erickson said they wouldn’t pause the program until AFTER Thanksgiving (which just seems pointless).
So while we are flat out lying to the citizens about pausing this ungodly $250K taxpayer expenditure that got funneled to Mayor TenHaken’s former(?) ad agency Click Rain we are throwing $20K towards the health department to educate the public about what we shouldn’t be doing during this pandemic. Maybe they will wait to educate us after Thanksgiving so couple 100 more people could die first.
As suspected, it probably wasn’t that easy to turn off the faucet because contracts were signed. And I suspect even after turkey day, the website will still be rolling and the ads will still be running like gravy down your uncle’s mouth (or Rudy’s sideburns).
But this should have NEVER happened to begin with. This was just a Hail Mary to the CVB and it’s subsequent contractors and had little to do about doing the right thing. Once again, like most leadership from City Hall and Carnegie these days, it’s all about the Benjamins and little else.
