This same content email has been sent multiple times to different local officials over the past week, the only thing that changes is the greeting and the signature;

Dear M——,

As your constituent and your boss, I demand that you do everything in your power to ban Vaccine Mandates and Passports. This is an unconstitutional deprivation of liberty without due process and is a critical issue to me. It is unconscionable that Americans freedom of movement would be threatened in an attempt to coerce people to get vaccinated, even as Anthony Fauci is urging masks be worn by the vaccinated and unvaccinated. I’ll be watching how you vote.

Sincerely,

I can tell you from talking to one of the elected officials who got this, there was some frustration, but if you want to make a point, you should probably write your own email instead of copy and pasting from InfoWars.

As for vaccination mandates, by private employers, I don’t agree unless you work in a critical field like healthcare, education, public service, transportation and food processing. I also think it goes against worker rights, especially in a right to work state like South Dakota, ironically where an employer can fire you for any reason, vaccination requirement or not. Employers in SD have the right to have ANY requirement, uniforms, shoes, or shots. While I think anyone eligible should get the vaccination, and if you don’t you are freaking moron (you really are) I don’t think your employer should be telling you what to do when it comes to your health. Besides, if your employer has to tell you this, they really should consider what kind of people are working for them 🙁 Trust me, I understand some people can’t get get the vaccination. I have several friends who have been told by their doctors not to get it. Most of those cases have to do with Cancer and blood clots. But a vast majority of Americans are eligible. As of today 96% of American doctors are fully vaccinated. If you don’t like your employer telling you what to do, be smart and go get a shot and you can avoid all this crap, oh and you might live.

UPDATE: Actually, when you think about it, giving people $100 for two shots would NOT be a handout. Technically two shots cost us $90 as Federal taxpayers, so you could look at it as a tax refund on the vaccination and NOT a handout.

While I somewhat agree with the premise that we shouldn’t have to pay people to take a FREE vaccine, there is much more the city and the mayor could do to encourage vaccination;

“While we want those who have not been vaccinated to step up to the plate and get their shot, I think we can trust people to make their own health care decisions without the need for a government handout,” TenHaken said in a statement sent to the Argus Leader.

This is certainly an interesting statement about government handouts considering this;

South Dakota has received more than $2 billion in federal stimulus since the start of the pandemic, with more than $50 million of that funneled to the city of Sioux Falls. 

So instead of incentivizing people with a Bennie, the city has spent most of this money on paying off bonds, building parks and other NON-RELATED covid expenses. I have even thought that how they spent some of this money was against Federal mandates.

Like I said, setting the precedent of giving people money to get a FREE vaccine would NOT be good, and I disagree with Biden on this, but the city already set a bad precedent by spending Covid money on things un-related to Covid which I think is far more nefarious.

They could have spent just 10% of the money and plastered this town with billboards, media PSA’s and print ads telling people why the vaccine is safe and should be taken. The billboards could show people dying on a ventilators, they could point out that 99.4% of all people getting hospitalized or dying of Covid are unvaccinated, or more importantly they could be telling people that the science and technology behind mNRA has been studied for around 30 years!!!! The only thing experimental about the vaccination is that it hasn’t had long term clinical trials, which I will admit does cause some anxiety, but the science has been around a long time.

Also, instead of the $100 incentive the city could also spend the money on workforce development, affordable housing, and public transportation. They could also put residents who have already been vaccinated and those willing to get it (2nd shot) to enter a city lottery where we could give out FREE community development grants to do needed repairs to their homes.

There are many ways to get creative with vaccination promotion.

The city should also have a vaccination clinic that runs Monday-Friday at Falls Community Health. Maybe they do, but I have not heard of it.

Let’s face it, the quickest way to get back to normal and turn around the economy is if herd immunity can be achieved, that is why Noem and TenHaken’s rank hypocrisy astonishes me. I agree people have the right to refuse the vaccination, but you have a duty as elected officials, with billions in your coffers from Federal taxpayers to educate people on the importance of this.

I ask Kristi and Paul the simple question I ask many conservatives who chose personally to get the vaccination. Didn’t you get it for the safety of your own health, your family’s health and the health of your community? They usually answer yes. Then why wouldn’t you encourage others? It’s mind boggling.

At the February 2, 2021 Sioux Falls City Council meeting, the council approved $100K to go towards a Covid Vaccination Education program.

Since then, there have been ZERO updates on how that program worked. Well if you look at the latest numbers for South Dakota, only 46.6% of people are FULLY vaccinated. Well below the 70-80% we need to be at.

I’m not sure what the numbers are in Sioux Falls, likely higher, but it would be nice to get an update. The one thing I have noticed about this administration is if something fails, they never talk about it again. I hate to say it, but if we don’t ramp up vaccinations in Sioux Falls immediately, we will be right back in the same boat we were last Fall. As the Covid variants get stronger, we will experiencing many more breakthrough infections.

I didn’t want to go here, but since my blogger to the north decided to stump me on Sioux Falls news I will;

Given these figures, Sioux Falls might want to reconsider the wisdom of removing its masks. We’re not out of the woods yet; we still need to give time for everyone to get their shots and for those shots to do their work. Mask up, stay home.

I told a couple of Sioux Falls City Councilors recently that the Covid fight is similar to a drag race, you don’t let off the gas until you cross the finish line. My Great Uncle ‘Bingo’ Ehrisman (yeah, that’s his nickname) was a well known dragster in the 1960’s and beyond, he told me once you need two things to win a race, a fast car and a heavy foot. They put a parachute in the trunk for a reason. I look at Covid this way, while in the race we are fast and furious and once we end we can pull the rip cord.

Wearing masks works, and holding back now seems futile. In fact they started wearing masks during the plague because they figured out sneezing on people isn’t such a great idea. In fact, mask wearing has made our influenza season virtually non-existent. Gee I wonder why?

I figure if we stay the course and don’t let off the gas until the finish line, Covid cases may be almost gone by September, but if we continue to jump the gun, this will last longer.

I also encourage everyone to get a vaccine, I got my first shot last week and I feel fine. Too bad there isn’t a vaccination against bad leadership.

Well if you blinked your eyes yesterday you may have missed the Minnehaha CC/Sioux Falls CC joint meeting. The whopping 12 minutes of it.

Like the Sioux Falls City Council Informational meeting at 4 PM, the meeting wasn’t playing correctly on SIRE. They still don’t have it fixed and it seems they don’t really care. I guess the city is ran by a lot of Hi-Tech losers, who talk a big game but cannot deliver. Kind of reminds you of what that guy tells you on Sundays about your path to paradise.

Besides the fact that you could not watch the meeting online, it started right at 5 PM right when people are getting off of work.

They deferred the airport item due to a delayed FAA study, then asked for general public input at the end and that was it. I arrived at Carnegie right after it was done. I wanted to address both bodies about the excessive panhandling that has been going on all year long, what they were planning on doing about it, and some of my ideas to fix the problem (like fining people who give from their car windows and signage about ordinances and laws). But when you don’t live stream a meeting and start it as everyone is getting off of work, it doesn’t give you much time to attend.  I’m not sure who the rocket scientist is that thinks scheduling a meeting at 5 PM on Tuesday is a good idea, but . . . oh that’s right, the same authoritarian fascists who have a war on transparency in our city.

Speaking of the Informational Meeting (that was cutting out) what I could catch of it, and from the propaganda piece they sent to SF Bizzo it seems they are trying to sugarcoat how they are spending the money;

Of that, $4 million would be added to the pool of funding for arterial street expansion.

One of the things that has frustrated me is that the city continues to spend millions on new parks, new roads, and expansion while ignoring our core infrastructure. I have always preferred the mantra, take care of what you have first & if you can’t feed em’ don’t breed em’. So while they are spending our tax dollars on subsidizing corporations that pay little to no taxes & crappy wages they are sticking it to us on the back side;

The assessed value of the Platinum Point 52-unit town home complex in south Sioux Falls jumped 35 percent last year — and the developer said it’s just one example of a troubling trend.

For 17 years of owning my home the biggest increases I saw were 2% but most years it was 0%. Last year they nailed me for a 22% increase, which got reduced a bit, and this year they hit me with a 14% increase. As I have been warning people, this is what happens when we have an out of control TIF and tax rebate program to the developers, also we have an affordable housing crisis in Sioux Falls with an inflated housing market and straddle that with criminal justice costs in the County increasing (drug crimes) and a School District on a $300 million dollar spending spree and what you get is a greedy tax collection system. I have argued for a long time this is unsustainable and it’s bound to get even worse.

You can’t keep raping the little guy for more in property taxes & fees while blowing the money on more NEW infrastructure while you can’t maintain the current crumbling infrastructure in our core.

Recently a local government official told me after having a conversation with someone who studies affordable housing and poverty in Sioux Falls they said the problem is hard to fix but easily explained (paraphrasing);

“The gap between the rich and poor in Sioux Falls has widened greatly over the past 10 years, and widening even faster now. There isn’t a middle to upper middle class in Sioux Falls anymore. You are either living in poverty or close to it, in debt up to your ears, or extremely rich.”

There is also the problem with transparency that is not only affecting the citizens and our tax increases but information is being withheld from the city council by the administration. According to charter, the council is the body that is supposed to be making decisions on policy, budget, taxation and fees, not the mayor’s office.

Of course, none of this will end unless people start speaking up. While we will blab at the podium for 2 hours about masks and kids crying about it, we say nothing while our government is literally taking us to the cleaners and telling us nothing about how they are doing it.

Greed is destroying our community and it is being done by ‘supposed’ Christian leaders.

Maybe they need to listen a little bit harder to that guy on Sunday.