South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Mayor Subprime Mike Huether

Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether

While Mayor Transparency toots his horn . . .

l3wis 7Comments

The Argue Endorser fails to publish a letter to the editor online about Mike’s lack of transparency. I’m getting the original version from the author;

Dear Editor,

I attend City Council meetings on a regular basis. Documents supporting the Council’s agenda for that day are always readily available before the meetings. However, twice in the past several months, I have been denied access to public documents. Both incidences involved the Mayor’s events center update.  Instead of the documents supporting his presentation being readily available to the public, they are tightly controlled by his executive assistant who is present in the Council chambers. On two different occasions, before the Council meeting began, I made a direct request for the supporting, public documents. Both times, I was denied, and told all copies were for the media only. This is a violation of South Dakota’s open records law.

In addition, the Council has requested that the events center documents be made available to them no later than the Friday preceding the Monday council meeting. This is not being done.

Our City’s top elected official speaks continually about open government. Is what I have described transparency?

Sincerely, Cheryl Rath

It talks about the refusal of information from the Huether administration. No surprise, but what surprised me was his bullshit double speak in the AL today about government transparency. Get out the 5-Buckle overboots and scoop shovels:

I come from corporate America. We always valued opinions, valued dissent.

You valued making money, that’s it. dishonesty was the fucking cornerstone of the business you were marketing, and you know it.

In the events center discussion, sincerely we are going way above and beyond in terms of communicating with the public about this unbelievably convoluted project. But because it is so convoluted, every time we talk it creates more rumor, speculation, innuendo, posturing and politics.

Convoluted? Who is making it convoluted? Let’s first start with the first task force, then the second, then mayor Munson, then you. It doesn’t have to be this way. Put a funding source on the table and let the public vote. As for rumors, you are the one who is creating them by your secrecy. If someone told me they had a big dick, I would say, “Show me.” Want the rumors to end? Show us.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a_6mYBwsVI[/youtube]

abortion Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether SF City Council Sioux Falls State Funding State Legislature

Ellis, Okerlund and Megan ‘Patron’ Luther bring the Triple Argue Endorser threat down!

l3wis 2Comments

Here’s to Megan! Salut!

I was going to do 3 separate posts, but hey, each story has a moral to it, and the contributors are from my favorite daily local newspaper (of course, there really isn’t another choice).

Let’s first start with Patron‘s lovely piece on the city paying out claims. While I enjoyed the information, two conflicting comments by Michelle Erpenbach struck me a bit;

“I come back to the idea that I feel the city has some responsibility for taking care of the people who live here,” she said.

I would agree with Michelle, 100%. But I find it odd that she feels a responsibility to take care of people (after all we all pay sales taxes) then turns around and expects us to pay more for it;

Erpenbach expects to vote for the (sewer rate) increase.

“To me, that’s part of living in a community,” she said. “In order to have the services that we want, at the level we want, it’s going to cost us money.”

While I can already hear the arguments, I will say this, if you want something to work and to be ‘nice’ it does cost extra, BUT, as I have said 100 x before, our sewer system was neglected while we squandered tax dollars on other stuff. It’s time to cut the apron strings from all the non-profits and extra-playland bullshit we are funding in Sioux Falls and target that money at the sewer system and streets instead jacking up our rates every freaking time we turn around.

Enough talk about turds.

Ellis had an interesting story about our mayor, and how he likes to edit his videos (as DaCola reported earlier this week). This quote by Huether was classic smilin’ Mike:

“There are folks that will do whatever they can to create partisanship, to stimulate divide versus progress and the people. And this is probably just another example,” he said.

Hey Mike? Wanna know what creates negativity, division, distrust in government and partisanship?

LIARS!

And now to Matt. I have to be honest with you, I don’t even know his job title at the AL but I always enjoy his columns. This week he points out the hypocrisy of the supporters of HB 1217;

Even though it almost certainly will be challenged in court as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, Gov. Dennis Daugaard says he probably will sign the bill the South Dakota Legislature has passed requiring a woman to wait 72 hours and to receive counseling before she can have an abortion in the state.

If the legislation lands in court, Daugaard and others have suggested there are private donors willing to put up the money to defend it.

Which seems to beg the question: Why stop there?

If there are people in this nation so bent on ending abortion they’ll pay us to do their bidding, what other civil liberties could we attack to make some dough?

You’ll have to read the whole thing, good stuff.

Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Sioux Falls

Why does the mayor continue to lie about his intentions? (H/T – Poly)

l3wis 8Comments

And why is our media continuing to allow it? The hiring of his new special projects manager is a prime example. The job was supposed to pay between $51-$71,000 a year (to essentially be a puppet for the mayor). Instead, the pay got bumped a bit:

Human Resources Director Bill O’Toole said she will earn $77,700 a year.

Don’t get me wrong, that much a year in the corporate world is probably peanuts, but Ms. Kendra must remember she is now a public servant, and I’m sorry, being a parrot for Mike isn’t worth $77,700 dollars a year of my tax dollars. It is pretty obvious that Ms. Kendra wasn’t going to leave CNA for less pay, that’s just silly, and I am sure that is why she asked for what she did. I also get the feeling that Huether hired a woman for the job because I think, and have heard he is kinda chauvanistic (water cooler talk), and it will be easier for him to control a woman (in his mind).

I have some advice for Ms. Kendra; even if it costs you your job, stand up to this guy. But who knows, you may be cut from the same corporate clothe.

Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Sioux Falls

So just how much is Legacy Electronics going to pay workers?

l3wis 23Comments

UPDATE: Sources tell me that this all originated during this Listening and Learning session, if you watch closely a portion is edited out. There was a part where Huether talked about Legacy bringing $55,000 to $65,000 a year jobs. There was backlash from the governor’s office and Legacy. Something else was that Huether mentioned that Legacy was expanding in South Dakota, actually they are relocating.

There has been some ‘buzz‘ and some ‘doubts‘ about Legacy Electronics moving some of their administrative, sales and manufacturing jobs to Sioux Falls. I have heard positive and negatives from numerous people, but what I haven’t heard is the details on these ‘High paying jobs.’

California company Legacy Electronics is expanding to Sioux Falls and bringing some high-paying jobs with it, Mayor Mike Huether announced today.

“In the past, we’ve sold South Dakota as hard-working people who will work for nothing, and no taxes,” Huether said. “No more. Yes, we are hard-working people. We also deserve a living wage.”

Okay, sounds great. Even though Legacy brags about the no tax benefit;

Cost Savings

In addition to the state’s beneficial tax structure . . .

But what is that living wage Huether has promised? Well let’s look at there opportunities and career pages. Maybe there is something wrong with my computer, because I didn’t see any pay scales on those pages? Did you?

It’s time Legacy gave us a ballpark figure on what they are paying. I can’t hardly imagine what Huether thinks is a ‘living wage‘ being a former executive with First Premier. One person even told me that Mike might have gotten a head of himself on the ‘high paying  jobs‘ quote.

While I welcome the new job opportunities I am skeptical of any company moving here because they want to pay South Dakota workers a high wage.

Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Sioux Falls

SF Library director asked to ‘retire early’ by the mayor

l3wis 15Comments

Image by Indiefox

I did find her sudden retirement strange. Sally Felix had only worked for the city for 8 years, and it seemed to me, she still had a lot she wanted to accomplish. I don’t really have an opinion about Sally, good or bad, but I will say that our libraries are very nice and well attended to. Not sure why arrogant A-Hole Huether fired her, but Holsen lets us in one some background info (you also have to take into account that Jen’s commentary is a bit slanted, she fed at the same trough as Felix did – but it is a good read). This part is interesting;

Mayor Huether questioned the need for libraries in general, noting that research can be done using Google and consumers can buy e-readers.  He equated library services as only reaching out to the homeless and the poor.  As ill-conceived as that may be, let’s go down that road a minute and ponder the logic of supporting the purchase of a security system to lock the homeless up but questioning the worth of a system that can teach them to read.

LMAO! I sent an email two weeks ago to a councilor about this very topic. I said,

“So who are we protecting homeless alcoholics from with a $100,000 security system?”

Their friends? Or themselves? Councilor Jamison was the only councilor to vote against the expenditure (Entenman was not present).

While I don’t know the ins and outs of the whole Felix situation, I will give props to Jen for bringing this to light, looks like Detroit has some competition. Will the local media pick this up?

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