South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Mayor High Crimes

Crime Mayor High Crimes SFPD Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls has it’s own version of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’

l3wis 4Comments

In fact, it’s so strange, the public wasn’t engaged to solve it.

The rumor going around between officers is that on the night of the BLM protests at the mall when every law enforcement agency in the area responded someone robbed a big box store, and they weren’t looking for Busch Light and table saws. They took all of their guns. ALL OF THEM. Don’t know the value of that stuff, but I would guess north of a million dollars.

The irony is officers say the SFPD classified it as an unsolved crime pissing a lot of people off.

The minor disturbance of latch key kids throwing pebbles at officers in the mall parking lot was a great decoy to pull off one of the largest property crimes committed in Sioux Falls.

Unsolved.

You would have thought they would have reached out to the public to help solve such a great loss?

The last police chief left shortly after this happened.

Former Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut Former Mayor Coors Light & Olives Mayor Almost Done Mayor Grump Toad Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Pants on Fire MIDCO Aquatic Center Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

LifeScape Parking lot expansion further proof the indoor pool was built in the wrong place

l3wis 6Comments

I think the debate is over, we wanted an indoor pool and we got one. But a major issue at the time was the location of the pool. While I wouldn’t be opposed to a public indoor pool built at a city park, Spellerberg Park was problematic from the get go.

Besides the fact that there is no room for expansion, one of the major issues was parking expansion of the VA. We knew the VA was going to expand, we knew they would need more parking and we knew they held the quit claim deed to Spellerberg. If the pool wasn’t built there they could have easily expanded parking into the park. NOW, we have LifeScape tearing up affordable housing in the center of our city for parking because they NO longer have space at the VA.

I still believe a public/private partnership with Sanford at the Sports complex for an indoor pool would have made more sense, and really there is nothing stopping them from doing their own pool in the future.

While the negotiations behind the RR redevelopment was one of the worst in the past administration, building the indoor pool at Spellerberg is proving also to be another poor decision from a RAM-ROD mentality of the previous administration.

Mayor Almost Done Mayor Grump Toad Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Pants on Fire Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Open Government Open Meetings Sioux Falls

Transparency in local government is our #1 Priority

l3wis 2Comments

I have been telling people lately that I could care less about all the issues discussed in the last municipal election campaign, except one, TRANSPARENCY. The Argus agrees;

It’s important to acknowledge that the Premier Center settlement would not have been unveiled without legal efforts undertaken by the Argus Leader, which also just won a seven-year battle with the federal government over access to SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) payments.

The most recent mayoral election might have played out differently if not for our insistence on transparency and accountability from both candidates.

SouthDacola has been fighting for transparency since I started this blog. Without it government runs amuck in corruption, and everything that is done in the dark is not to be trusted.

Funny part is if it weren’t for my blog there never would have never been a siding settlement or the pressure of transparency in the last election. I basically told Jack Marsh last Friday at Dem Forum that news organizations have become slaves to their advertisers. He claimed it isn’t happening in print media. I beg to differ.

If blogs would not have brought up these important topics, who would have? Jack Marsh? Randell Beck? Stu Whitney? Angela Kenneke? Yeah right.

No matter how many accolades we want to spread around towards the end of Huether’s administration any thing he ‘got done’ behind the blinds lacks the integrity to even be mentioned. It’s actually disgusting to listen to him take credit in the 100 or so press conferences he has had last week for creating some kind of utopia here. Hey, Mike, in a utopia, people do things in the open.

A good ship is run on the open seas.

Mr. TenHaken, you promised transparency, and we’ll be watching. I think your campaign intentions hold merit. And remember, always err on the side of openness.

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

Did Huether use insider city hall information to invest in real estate development?

l3wis 3Comments

This has been the lingering question with Huether since he walked into office 8 years ago.

Neither I or the media could answer yes or no to that question. I have never gotten a solid answer.

When we have talked about the lack of transparency in his administration it goes beyond sharing city business information with the public and council.

There has only been one incident since Mike took office that we could say that he did, or least his ‘wife’ did. Cindy invested in a property that received a TIF from the city. The only other instances I can point to is a couple of local developers telling me he has and a person from the planning office telling me this, but hearsay only.

There are minimal conflict of interest laws in the state to enforce this. And even if you don’t have an ethical issue with Mike doing this, shouldn’t he at least have to disclose this kind of information?

I really think the new city council should put a policy in place that requires councilors and the mayor to disclose if they are investing in local development projects, whether they are connected to the city or not, they all must go through the planning department so in some ways they are connected even if they are a silent investor/partner.

We may never know if Huether did, but we certainly can protect the public from the future mayor using inside information to fatten their wallet.

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