Mike Huether

The Jesus Plows are back!

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Lutheran School’s ode to fish and Jesus.

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While stating you are ‘Christ the King’ school is not an issue, the Cross to the far left may be.

You sometimes wonder what part of the US Constitution government officials don’t understand when it comes to the 1st Amendment? Thomas Jefferson made it clear;

Jefferson’s metaphor of a wall of separation has been cited repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Reynolds v. United States (1879) the Court wrote that Jefferson’s comments “may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment.” In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Hugo Black wrote: “In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.”

Many have argued against it, like our city attorney and mayor, but they are hardly our founding fathers who formed our democracy and wrote our bill of rights and constitution. The separation of government and religion is there to protect all of us, not just Christians.

The sad part of this is that after already being warned that this was not a good practice, the city relies on a disclaimer that is too small to read as a snow plow comes flying by with Jesus painted on the front. It just doesn’t pass the smell test. Why not just implement a policy that is simple;

Schools are discouraged of painting words or symbols on government owned property that promote a certain religion or sect. For example; Star of David, Muslim moon or the the Christian cross. If a school is not willing to abide by those rules, their ‘artwork’ will be painted over.

Wow! How simple is that?

For the record, I don’t have an issue with the Christian schools painting ‘God’ on the snowplows, that is a general term that doesn’t refer to a particular religion and well within 1st Amendment rights. Other words such as ‘faith’ or ‘spirituality’ are also acceptable.

Government property should not be used to promote a certain religion. Period. Many great societies immigrated to our country to rid themselves of religious persecution. They were tired of government telling them how to worship, or to worship at all. With freedom of religion, comes freedom from religion. Government has no place in it, and our Mayor, City Attorney and Public Works department should not allow it on government property.

The Strong Mayor form of government in Sioux Falls doesn’t mean the mayor is in charge of the city council

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yaZBftMK7A

During the latest installment of “Ask Hizzoner” Mayor Mike talks about his relationship with the council (FF: 20:00). He touches on some interesting points;

• Strong Mayor form of government

• Transparency with the Council

• The role of the council and the executive branch and his position in those roles

One of the main roles as the mayor under this current charter is to be the city manager, and that is a simple task. He is in charge of the city employees (mostly the department directors). But the mayor seems to think he can be in charge of the council and their staff (bullying). He is not, though he has been very successful so far in turning the tide in his favor.

He also talks about how the city clerk and the city attorney were treated during the city administration debate by certain people who were spreading false information about what they were doing. I’m still confused by this defense. There was proof in an email from the city attorney of how they were going to try to stall the process. There is also the famous ‘stamp’ incident in which the city clerk claims he didn’t look at something he officially stamped. These are not falsehoods or lies, those are the facts. If the mayor and the citizens want to defend them and what they did in the process, I am all for that, but let’s base that defense on what was truly said and done. Otherwise it’s just another load of crap from the executive branch.

This is where the mayor goes into a rant about transparency between his office and the city council. He feels this transparency is important for the CITIZENS. Ironically he doesn’t share the same feelings about transparency when sharing details with the council or these same citizens, but he wants to require it of the council. What color is the kettle Mike?

This really ties in with the ‘threats’ of ethics violations towards councilor Stehly (or any councilor for that matter) that doesn’t fall in line with the administrations wishes. If the mayor can’t control city councilors he has his attorney threaten them with concocted ethics violations. And BTW, how are those violations coming along? Or are they only empty threats from a bully? This is why it would be important for the council to have their own attorney to advise them on ethics and other legislative matters. Sure we have a guy who uses a stamp with no recourse, a guy who makes budget number spread sheets once and awhile and another guy who is good at power point presentations but the council has no legal advisor. They had all three plus an attorney in Debra Owen, and guess what happened to her? Another victim of bullying from the executive branch.

I believe the mayor is using his city attorney to bully certain councilors into following his agenda. He believes he must control the city council by using council leadership (who don’t have a clue) and the city attorney. It has been evident who controls the city attorney when he acted as the mayor’s personal attorney during the mayor’s ethics hearing.

There is also this hypocrisy the mayor possess when it comes to being a city councilor. He claims to be a part of their group when breaking ties to get his way, but claims to not be a part of them when controversy arises over ethics. Which is it Mike? Either you are a part of the council all the way, or according to the charter simply a tie-breaker. If you were a true member of the council, you would attend all of their meetings (that’s part of that whole transparency thing you were bitching about) or not.

It’s simple, you run the operations of the city and the council is in charge of legislating it. Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, because frankly threats of ethics violations run both ways. And if that happens, I suggest you hire your own personal attorney (like Stehly had to) to defend yourself against the accusations instead of wasting taxpayers money using your (personal) city attorney.

The city isn’t a business where you are the CEO that controls everything, it has checks and balances in place. Those balances must remain unfettered, otherwise, as Dan Daily famously said at a recent public input to the council, “You can go home now, we don’t need you anymore.”

Congrads?

I guess I have never heard that word before, but when you are either high or drunk or both most of the day, spelling isn’t really a virtue.

As I was at the Mayor’s Neighborhood Summit listening to our guest speaker talking about all the things we do the opposite in Sioux Falls, and the Mayor talking about his favorite topic ‘bad neighbors’. Bruce shows me a photo of a sign that was nailed to his side of the fence in the middle of the night.

And he is the bad neighbor.

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Petition Hearing tomorrow, Wednesday, September 28

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Judge Salter presiding, Courtroom 5B, 8 AM.

During the interview with Belfrage this morning, the mayor proclaims at the end of the interview that the administration building is a ‘Done Deal’ and it’s good that the council has moved on (the 5 that voted against the advisory vote). Before that though, Belfrage asks an interesting question that the mayor doesn’t answer, Greg says that even if the petitions are approved, it’s just an advisory vote anyway? Not quite, and maybe the mayor didn’t catch that. If the petitions are found to be valid by the judge tomorrow the city council can still certify them and ask for an election, in fact they must. That election is an initiative ordinance. In other words, it is NOT an advisory vote, if the citizens vote down the selling of the bonds, it MUST go into effect.

And that is where I take issue with Mike’s comment ‘Done Deal’. The bond sale cannot take effect until Monday October 3, and even if that sale is ordered on Monday, it could take months before they are bought in the market.

Depending on what judge Salter decides tomorrow, this could be far from being a ‘done deal’. But once again, the mayor is using wishful thinking. But who can blame him, he got the EC and the Indoor Pool using the same philosophy.