Mayor Subprime Mike Huether

One more reason why the Home Rule charter handcuffs our council

I just magically appeared after a little rain and ice.

This should come as no surprise that our mayor, or any mayor of Sioux Falls for that matter (cough . . . Munson . . . cough), just does things without consulting the council, well, because he can. The Home Rule charter pretty much gives absolute power to the mayor. But as we have been finding out more and more of this power has been found unconstitutional. So does our new council have the guts to dismantle the charter or will it be in the hands of the people? Comments from at least one of the council members is encouraging, but I am not going to hold my breath;

There wasn’t a mayoral candidate in all of Sioux Falls who didn’t have a thing or two to say about potholes.

And after securing victory, one of the first steps Mayor Mike Huether took was to redirect $2.6 million to the war on crumbling streets. That money piggybacked on former Mayor Dave Munson’s redoubling of efforts on street repair in March.

But the additional money didn’t materialize out of thin air, and it will come at a cost to other projects. About $1.4 million of the additional money will come from the city’s arterial street expansion program, meaning that some projects, including work at major intersections, will be put off.

Huether made the decision unilaterally, without consulting the council. He has the authority to do it, but City Council Chairman Greg Jamison said it would have been nice to get a heads up, especially for councilors who had projects in their districts delayed because of the switch in funding.

“I just felt like, out of courtesy, he could have brought us in,” Jamison said.

While I agree our potholes should be fixed pronto, I think the council should have been a part of the decision. Like I said above, these kind of decisions will continue unless we tear down the Home Rule Charter. Case in point;

Huether and four new councilors were not around when the council fought a bruising battle over arterial streets. Faced with an $85 million backlog, a split council in 2008 voted to increase the city’s second-penny sales tax and development fees for more work on arterial streets.

And who made the final passing vote on this debacle that has FORCED taxpayers to pay their fair share but not the developers? Mayor Munson. But even more troubling, some developers still are blaming the weather;

Chuck Point, a vice president at Ronning Cos., was among the developers who pushed for more money for arterial streets. He said he’s not worried about diverting some money from arterial streets to make repairs – for now.

“I can’t fault him for it,” Point said of Huether’s decision to divert funding from arterial roads. “If you drive around Sioux Falls, you saw it. What I get frustrated about is people blaming the wrong thing. It was the weather.

Bullshit!

While the weather did make the potholes literally explode, I find it hard to believe that this happened overnight. These potholes have been festering for years. Like I have said in the past, I have ridden my bike on the streets of this town for years, they were in bad shape to begin with, and if you just ignore them, they will only get worse, which happened. The city, the past mayor and council ignored keeping up with infrastructure during good economic times. We had record sales tax revenue and we squandered it, now we are scrambling to fix something we have no money for. We missed the boat to literally put money away for a RAINY DAY, now we have to pay the piper, and that means delaying new projects.

This new mayor and council better come to a quick realization that prioritizing should be their number one concern.

Just how much was spent by Heuther on consulting during the mayoral campaign?

Winning elections the good old fashion way – buying them

We will soon know the final amount when the final financial report comes out at the end of this month, unfortunately too late to make a difference at the polls. But someone pointed out to me that the ‘consultants’ were getting paid all along in the ‘in-kind’ donations and were cleverly labeled ‘consulting fees’ with the name of the recipient withheld. I decided to comb through those numbers.

Up until the election aproximately $65,000 was spent by Huether on ‘consulting fees’

This is a rough number, because the financial reports are fuzzy about how you claim these numbers (it seems in some places you claim it twice). The assumption is that these fees went to Hildebrand Strategies who was running Mike’s campaign. It will be interesting to see the final financial report, because quite often, bonuses are paid for winning elections to consulting firms. We’ll see, I guess.

UPDATE: It seems the 4/22/10 financial report was the last filing and the $65,000 is probably the last report.

No wonder Darrin Smith threw Staggers under the bus during the mayoral campaign, he had a job riding on it

My little birdy was right, Smith was angling for a job in the Huether administration. It’s okay though, if Darrin doesn’t like the job he can always QUIT!

Mayor Mike announced his replacements today;

They are: David Pfeifle, city attorney; Jill Franken, public health; Darrin Smith, community development public parking; and Sue Quanbeck Etten, central services.

I don’t have a clue about the others, maybe some of my readers can fill us in.

Mayor Huether; “I can’t cross the street without women giving me their phone number.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_QxRBxf36I[/youtube]

Meet Mayor Huether’s new advisor

This video of ‘Ask the Mayor’ is pretty informative, here is a sampling;

(Paraphrasing) (Ahem) “Excited people across the city want to talk to me about issues, and not just about my awesomeness . . . I can’t go anywhere without people wanting to talk to me as mayor, it is great thing, even greater then my perfect politician haircut . . . It’s hard to cross the street in Sioux Falls, because people are calling out my name to talk to me, some want to share their ideas some just want to tell me to fuckoff. I think it will go on for the next four years, and I am excited about it, especially the fuckers telling me to fuckoff. Because I like that word. Fuck! Especially in radio studios”

He also discusses his transition team;

(Paraphrasing) (Ahem) “Many people have been asking about my transition team, well it is me. But I also have other people, for instance my wife, Cindy. Also, my close friend, president of Augustana, Rob Oliver. But I also have others. I bought Wilbur the Coyote from Gigglebees, he is advising me, I also hired a drag queen, Princess Falls to advise me on how to turn Sioux Falls into a gay haven, and of course a place to get a perfect politician haircut, like mine.”

He thinks he may have to move the listening sessions from ‘whisk and choop’ to the Orpheum theatre becuase of all the people coming to them (nevermind there is a building you can use rent free – Carnegie Hall).

(Paraphrasing) (Ahem) “The popularity of the listening sessions on Saturday has been very popular. I have never seen so much blue hair in my life! We all drink crappy coffee and eat bland breakfast food and talk about the issues.”