I had to laugh that newly elected councilor stole my cartoon idea in this article;
“My joke is: a doctor, a lawyer and a preacher walked into a bar …” Barranco said of himself and his fellow incoming council members.
He also said this;
He also sees the commanding re-election of TenHaken – and the election of all candidates he endorsed – as a sign that residents are happy with how things are going and that “the city’s on track.”
Yes David, a very small percentage that bothered to vote in North Harrisburg are just tickled Taupe.
During the council debate on Thursday night Janet Brekke said she will work with Chief Thum to try to implement some national standards for the police. In her recent mailer she said;
• Secure a stable Police Department training budget so our officers have the latest instruction available.
• Support Chief Thum’s 3 new initiatives to engage young people so they don’t become offenders.
• Strengthen relationships between patrol officers and neighborhoods.
Apparently this really irritated candidate Merkouris who went on this rant;
While I would partially agree you don’t take all National standards and hope they work in Sioux Falls, you still have to look at what could work. I was very surprised how agitated he got over it, considering the problems we are having with our police and other city employees. There have been 4 arrests over the past couple of months of city employees. Two for abuse and two for child porn.
There was also some other ‘dog whistles’ on other candidates postcards;
David Barranco said this;
I have two strong boys . . .
and continued on the back;
We must not assume someone who shares our values will prevail on April 12.
You can take that how you want to, but I think Barranco is painting his opponent as someone who lacks values and it is a low blow.
Sarah Cole also made some false claims on her latest mailer;
I am not a politician.
I hate to break it to you Sarah, but when you run for office you become a politician. As a recent female business leader said to me when TenHaken made the same claim, “He is extremely tone deaf.”
Politician; a person who is professionally involved in politics, especially as a holder of or a candidate for an elected office.
Sarah continues her rant;
The people of Sioux Falls deserve a city councilor that will serve with integrity and respect for others. I won’t play games or pick petty fights.
The timing of this statement after TenHaken tried to intimidate Brekke is interesting to say the least especially coming from a POLITICIAN who has never voted in a single city or school board election in the community she wants to serve.
I think on Tuesday, your choice is very clear; Reistroffer, Brekke, Pam Cole and Cody Ingle.
Sioux Falls City Council Candidate David Barranco has said very little about his past during the campaign, which I find bizarre considering he has only lived here a short period of time. Since then (mostly Republicans) have been reaching out to me and their regret in supporting this person initially. There has even been a sitting city councilor questioning their past support. I have encouraged them to reach out to Cody Ingle, get to know him and even better, cut him a donation check.
While I have heard a myriad of rumors, it’s been hard tracking down or verifying some of the accusations. What is mostly surprising from this Texas attorney and textbook author is the several gaps in his professional life that seem to have just disappeared from the internets.
This is what we know so far;
• Moved with his family in the Spring of 2018 to Sioux Falls from San Antonio, TX after selling his home there. Barranco has never given a reason why he decided to leave Texas because . . .
• Has never applied for or attained a SD Bar License and still maintains his practice in the state of Texas where he has his law license.
UPDATE: Someone mentioned to me today that maybe the reason he hasn’t applied for a SD Bar License is because he doesn’t want to submit himself to a background check. This doesn’t mean looking into his personal criminal history or finances but the cases he has handled and his record as an attorney.
What I would really love to hear from Mr. Barranco is why did he move to South Dakota if he really has NO intent to practice law here? His wife, as far as I can tell, isn’t pursuing a career here either though she has experience in the corporate world.
While I certainly could care less that David has only lived here 4 years and is interjecting partisan politics in a city race, I will defend his right to run for office, but it would be really nice to know what brought him here and why the sudden interest in local politics and legislating when you don’t make a single dime in this town?
Many have been asking the question. When will our media?
Up until this point, the only really thing we knew about Mr. Barranco (who is a candidate in the SE district for the Sioux Falls City Council) is that he fears the boogey man called socialism and he tries to buy votes with go-cart and intertube rides.
But when you start digging around you begin to wonder if his campaign and (family) life in Sioux Falls is all a charade? What are they really doing here? And why does his city council campaign face seem so different than his face from the past?
The first thing several people (lawyers) have questioned is why doesn’t Barranco have a law license in South Dakota? I guess he hasn’t ever applied. He currently holds a license in Texas where his clients are and makes no income in South Dakota. Then why leave Texas for South Dakota? I guess you would have to ask him.
In 1993, David was named UT’s most outstanding liberal arts student; in 1997 he won the Willie Morris Award, which recognizes a superlative “call to intellectualism, vigorous defense of civil liberties, and overall pursuit of excellence.”
Mr. Barranco is especially proud of his SPLC Wall of Tolerance commendation — an award affording him the opportunity to shake hands with a true American hero, Rosa Parks.
The MacArthur Foundation granted David a 2004 Post-Graduate Fellowship in Public Policy.
With all these accolades, you kind of scratch your head a bit and ask why none of this stuff is mentioned on his website or in forums? He likes to talk mostly about dog parks and football.
You also have to scratch your head a little about the life experiences of his wife Catherine who currently doesn’t work at all;
Because it had been her ambition since childhood to attend Harvard College, she applied for early-decision admission to the top-ranked school, got in and never filled out another college application. Not surprisingly, her choice worked out well for her. “I knew Harvard had history and traditions as well as a quality education, with students you could learn from,” says O’Gorman. “You can study down by the river in Cambridge, and in 10 minutes you can be in Boston, having Ethiopian food or going to the ballet.” At Harvard, O’Gorman remained an outstanding student, making the Dean’s List each semester and graduating magna cum laude.
So you attend Harvard, worked as an executive with Walmart, then move to South Dakota and become a house wife after a short stint with the SD GOP with a mysterious departure?
There is something very peculiar about the Barrancos to go from Wine and Cheese Texans to Beer and Chislic South Dakotans. If I had a resume like either one of these folks, wouldn’t you tell people about it while running for office? Maybe he is on a secret mission to destroy local government from within? Wait, someone is already doing that 🙂
If Barranco really is an intellectual he will be bored to death serving on the city council.
Sorry, I just caught this, but it looks like Barranco had another questionable vote buying event. Unlike the event before that at Thunder Road (which was filed as an in-kind donation on his last finance report) this event was NOT at a private facility but one that was owned by taxpayers. I am pretty sure that Great Bear CANNOT provide an in-kind donation to a political candidate and it is likely he paid for this out of campaign funds (at least he should have).
Ironically, I’m not even sure the event took place since Great Bear being open at all is a rarity 🙂
To play the Devil’s advocate, you could argue that candidates hold events all the time at rented facilities where they may provide light foodie and drinkie, but I’m not sure paying for voter’s kids to go tubing is the same.
I have seen many candidates over the years do questionable events that border on unethical, but over the last two election cycles it has exploded into what they can get away with, like the mayor having a FREE two-hour radio ad KELO.
There is a checklist when deciding on a candidate that you should review, and ETHICS should be at the top of that list.
A news story probably not covered in SF politics yesterday was that two perspective candidates DID NOT make the ballot due to the lack of signatures.
Mike Zitterich who was hoping to run for AT-Large B did send me an email last night explaining to me his disappointment and hoped to run in the future. He said it was due to time constraints.
Bassey did not have enough valid signatures to get into the race, he tells me
I found out about Bassey last week and that he was recruited by some local politicians to run. Considering who they were I anticipated that he would make the ballot. I find it odd that if the rumor was true that he was recruited by these folks they didn’t help him gather signatures. Almost looked like a false flag operation to discourage others from running against Barranco.
Thank goodness Ingle qualified for the ballot and I encourage anyone that is on the fence in the SE district about the candidates to reach out to Mr. Ingle and get to know this incredible individual. As for Barranco, I hear very little about him except that he doesn’t pay his property taxes on time.
We saw the writing on the wall when Alex Jensen and his cabal of donors had to spend $127K to beat a self-employed piano teacher by around 90 votes. The regular guy/gal is no longer allowed to compete.
Just look at the usual donors on the financial reports (someone should tell Andera that she can’t add her smaller contributions up twice 🙂
It is the same group of rich Republican businessmen and mysterious dark PACs (so some of these rich people can hide their identities) that are once again funding the campaigns of the NON-regular people (except Islam who seems to have half the state of Michigan gunning for her and they all work at the same hospital 🙂
You have to chuckle when Clowncilor Marshall Selfish actually suggested that the reason the members needed a bigger salary is so more regular people could run. That’s rich considering he never mentioned that you actually need the money up front.
We could change this with a couple of easy steps;
• Get rid of the Home Rule Charter as it exists and give more power back to council and,
• Publicly finance the races so everyone is on the same playing field.
We of course first must throw out the current charter, and there is a stew brewing on that one along with some other goodies I will share very soon.
So it looks like we will have yet another city election where a handful of people vote for the very people who are lining their pockets with donations from the banksters, bondsters and developers that are turning our city into a corporate welfare state.
Not quite sure if this violates campaign rules, but it sure looks suspicious. If it was a fundraiser and had an entry donation, that would be different. Hoping he will put on a FREE kegger event soon at one of our fine micro-breweries.
When I have helped with city council campaigns in the past, the first thing I remind people of is to ‘take care of the little things’ before announcing. Seems Mr. Barranco failed to tidy up a delinquent property tax bill before announcing running for city council;
Of course, this is no Federal Crime, he will likely have to pay a late payment fine and it will be all good. But I often tell people that if someone running for office can’t even manage the simple things in their personal lives, how can we expect them to serve us? Like I said, I could give 2 rips if he is late on his taxes, but this personal failure on his part certainly shows how much he will pay attention on the city council when managing OUR business, like when the city council hired a city clerk to run our elections that wasn’t even registered to vote. Just another rubber stamping, cruise control, seat warmer and little else.
