South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Mayor Grump Toad

Developers Development Mayor Grump Toad Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Pants on Fire Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Sioux Falls

Who is this Mysterious Anti-Development crowd you speak of?

l3wis 12Comments

The Mayor is now hallucinating and making up secret minority societies that oppose development in Sioux Falls (FF: 9:30).

I’m not sure who he is talking about. I have been following city politics for over 12 years, and besides a few older citizens that liked things the way they were in 1979, I don’t hear to many people who are opposed to development.

Has there been serious and mindful disagreements about how to accomplish that growth and development? Yes.

Redevelopment of existing core and central neighborhoods and businesses instead constantly buying up cornfields to build strip malls. Which only add to our infrastructure costs and maintenance. I have thought for awhile the redevelopment of Minnesota Avenue to be more bike/pedestrian friendly would spur more private redevelopment. I have lived here since 1991, and it looks the same as it did than (actually worse).

Tax incentives and TIFs are NOT needed to promote development in our community. Most developers, investors and builders in Sioux Falls have done just fine without government’s help. Some ask why we give these incentives? Because they ask for them and our mayor and his minions on the council roll over like an old dog. Besides, it’s not their money they are handing over to developers that may be investing with. End the corporate welfare and the let the free market do it’s job.

Eliminate or reduce regulations for redevelopment to make it more affordable.

More working class homes and apartments and less luxury homes and condos.

More community development loans and grants for individual homeowners.

Stop allowing the Hospital Industrial Complex buy up and eliminate affordable housing in central Sioux Falls.

There may be many disagreements with Mayor Huether on how to intelligently grow and develop our town, but just because we disagree doesn’t mean he is right.

Employment Mayor Grump Toad Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Pants on Fire Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Sioux Falls

City Employee defends mayor on diversity with FB comment

l3wis 3Comments

The comment was deleted, but not before it was left on Jolene Loetscher’s FB page in response to my comment about the mayor throwing mayoral candidates under the bus for not taking a stand on the parking ramp. I pointed out that Jolene did take a stance on the topic;

The person who left this message recently got promoted to the diversity department. I’m not sure if I have ever taken the mayor to task for diversity, I’m also not sure what he has done for diversity, maybe she is right, not sure. I will agree I have been critical of some city employees, but that criticism is usually pointed at a certain department, a director or policy. I agree that the city employees work hard and have the best interest at heart, unfortunately their fear of Hizzoner stifles them sometimes.

I do know that my conversations with individual employees (retired, supervisors, firefighters, police officers, etc.) haven’t been happy with how their boss has been running the city. In fact many of them are very angry with his performance, to put it lightly, and can’t wait until he is gone. Obviously those who report directly to Mike, like this person does, have an appearance to keep up, and I get it. I just suggest they stop drinking the mayor’s kool-aid in the new city hall cafeteria and stay off of FB in the middle of the night.

Mayor Grump Toad Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Pants on Fire Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Rex Rolfing SF City Council Sioux Falls Theresa Stehly

A perfect time for Mayor Huether to prove Sioux Falls city government isn’t ‘sinister’

l3wis 2Comments

“God doesn’t seek for golden vessels, and does not ask for silver ones, but He must have clean ones.” – Dwight L Moody.

Yesterday during the Sioux Falls city council informational meeting, councilor Rex Rolfing couldn’t help himself, he had to put in a dig at Part-Time Mayor (councilor) Theresa Stehly.

In Stehly’s quest for transparency she continually asks for open RFPs. This hasn’t been sitting well with Rolfing, he continues to hammer home the LIE that state law requires RFPs to NOT be public. This of course is untrue. Municipalities in South Dakota have the CHOICE to make none, some or all of RFPs open and transparent. Sioux Falls chooses to make them NOT open. I reminded Rolfing of this at the council meeting after he accused Stehly of making Sioux Falls city government seem secretive and ‘sinister’ by continually asking for open and transparent government. I went on to say, “I don’t think there has ever been a city in South Dakota get in trouble for being too open.”

I get it, he is opposed to transparency and thinks government works best if it keeps important contracts from citizens. As we have been learning over the past couple of months, secrecy is getting us into a lot of trouble and eroding the public trust. It’s blatantly obvious.

Of course councilors Rolfing, Erickson, and Erpenbach (and others) seem to think that the city council is pretty clean. And they probably are, except not recusing themselves on items that benefit people who fill their campaign coffers.

Are they investing in city projects? Don’t know. Several of them, at least Erickson, Neitzert and Erpenbach say they are not. I’m willing to listen, but when it comes to the mayor coming clean during public meetings, he changes the subject. Which puzzles me.

Wouldn’t this be a perfect opportunity for mayor Huether to have a press conference confirming he is NOT investing in city development projects OR projects that the city has fast tracked and approved? Personally I think such an action would wreak of hypocrisy. The mayor has admitted in the past that he does invest with city development, and developers have admitted he or his wife have invested money in local development, his wife invested in a project that got a city TIF and his private tennis center that bears his name at the Sanford Sports Complex has received $500k from the city with little to no benefit to citizens.

So if Rolfing and others on the council want to claim the city is clean when it comes to investing in development projects, shouldn’t they encourage the leader and chief executive of the city to tell us where he stands instead continuing to spread lies and innuendo?

Nope. It’s just easier to keep things secret because we know the latter would be disastrous to Mike’s delicate ego and reputation. We wouldn’t want to be known as the city with a ‘sinister’ mayor.

Mayor Grump Toad Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Pants on Fire Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Sioux Falls

Huether to make an announcement ‘soon’ on his political future

l3wis 18Comments

During his latest Shut Up and Listen session on Wednesday addressing a group of Chamber leadership peeps, MMM says he will be making an announcement soon on his political future. He says he has been considering many options which include running for senate or for governor or for mayor again in 4 years. He said he has considered all of them.

My bet is still on that he will run for governor as an independent. I just don’t think he will sit around for another 2-4 years. As a person who is constantly trying to re-invent the wheel, he isn’t going to just sit around and do nothing for that period of time.

During the session he also bragged about the city’s growth during his tenure. What he failed to mention is that most of the growth has come from people in our city making babies. The explosive growth in our school system is proof of this.

One of his sessions of course can’t go by without telling a few lies. He went on a rant about how NONE of the mayoral candidates or council candidates in the latest municipal race have taken a stance on the Parking Ramp before the vote. While I’m not sure if most them have or have not taken a stance, I do know that Jolene did. When asked by Lalley last week on his show Jolene said she did support the project. The only concern she had was the lack of transparency. But she was very firm on the fact she supports downtown development.

He also said he thought some of the candidates for mayor may push our city backwards. While I may not agree with some of the candidates philosophies, I don’t think ANY of them would go backwards. I think they are all pretty forward thinking, especially when it comes to open government and civil rights. It’s pretty sad he would say this, like he was some kind of great progressive. Spending mommy and daddy’s credit card on play things and producing enormous debt under a veil of secrecy is NOT progressive, it’s actually fiscally regressive.

He also blamed the city council for NOT fixing public transit, saying they can’t make the hard decisions. Funny, coming from the guy who doesn’t let them do things on their own. The Glory House land transfer was a great example of this. Councilor Starr had it handled with the help of the council and Mike had to get his fingers in their and make them pay for some of the land. The council also tried to stop the unnessary spending on the administration building and he vetoed them. He also stopped the districting of the parks board and has bragged that he only needs 2-4 votes to get things done with the council. The mayor has never worked with the council on anything, he only bullied them. No wonder they haven’t done anything with public transit, because any ideas they have would just get stomped down.

He will not be missed, and if he does decide to run for governor, I will do everything in my power to make sure that he does not win.

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