Clearing the air about Danielson lawsuit

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After listening to a morning radio show, I feel like some things need to be cleared up about Danielson’s lawsuit.

I will probably be called as a witness, so I will not comment on that part of the lawsuit, but I can comment about what we know.

Some are wondering why it took 3 years to file?

Danielson subsequently filed a criminal complaint into the incident with the state Division of Criminal Investigation, but nothing ever came of the complaint

If you read the suit, you will see that Danielson reported the incident right away to DCI. He didn’t sit on this for 3 years. Some have questioned the timing with Huether leaving office and Jackley being in the June primary;

Danielson said Monday that he filed the suit ahead of the statute of limitations, which would have kicked in three years after the incident.

He had to file it NOW or it would have been gone forever.

Like I said, as a witness I will not discuss the evidence, etc, but you can read for yourself the lawsuit HERE.

Did we learn anything from 8 years of Huether?

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After the election results came in last night I’m starting to ask that question. I will give the TenHaken camp credit though, I have been hearing they ran a multi-faceted campaign that contacted people through social media, direct mail, robo-calls/push polling, radio and print media. Diversity works.

But I ask people if they recall this resume from 8 years ago from another candidate;

Business acumen and pro-business

Corporate Marketing experience

ZERO government experience as either an elected official or public employee

Someone who wasn’t afraid to wear Jesus on their sleeve

Lots of ‘promises’ on how they will make Sioux Falls better for EVERYBODY.

Someone who got the financial contribution support of the big banksters in town

Someone who used nationally proven strategic campaign techniques

While that was Mike’s resume, guess who’s resume this time around fits that bill? Only ONE candidate, Paul TenHaken and to a certain degree Loetscher. Did we learn anything about what a Marketing guru has done for our city? I’m guessing not.

While many may say Mike was a Democrat and Paul is a Republican, I have often thought Mike was a Democrat in name only and used the Dem stamp to get support from labor and the party resources. After he switched to independent he proved to me that he really never was a Dem.

I truly believe that Paul is using this run as a stepping stone for something greater (kind of reminds of someone else to? Huh?)

I think it will be important for the new council to get ahead of the game this time around, whether it is Jo or Paul as mayor. They really need to implement policies ASAP to assure transparency and open communication between the mayor’s office and council. It’s better to just write open government into ordinance than to take a ‘wait and see’ approach. We have been down that road the past 8 years, we don’t need to be there ever again.

We don’t need another ‘salesperson’ for mayor

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There is a lot of people running for mayor this time around. And a lot of them are trying to ‘sell’ us their ideas. We don’t need another ‘salesperson’ for mayor.

Besides the backroom deals, the private investments with developers and the total lack of transparency and honesty from 8 years of Huether, ever notice he was always trying to ‘sell’ us something. If it wasn’t the Events Center it was an indoor pool, if it wasn’t the administration building it was the RR redevelopment, and in his final hoorah he sold us a parking ramp that costs double of what it should, doesn’t provide enough parking and puts us in cahoots with someone that is facing civil and Federal charges.

ENOUGH!

With all the debt he piled up with these purchases he cleverly tried paying down some of it with increased fees and taxes and sneaky ‘enterprise’ accounts. From May of 2010 – August of 2017 the administration initiated and the council passed over 50 fee and tax increases.

Now that we have a housing shortage, contractors will tell you that one of the biggest hurdles to providing more housing (even those that can afford it) is regulations. In the same time period above the mayor and council passed over 70 new code ordinances.

And what about the debt? Also in this same period there was 50 supplemental appropriations passed (extra budgeting) and 15 revenue bonds.

Our next mayor needs to stop selling us stuff because it is costing us dearly. It is actually hurting growth, mostly in sales tax revenue. People don’t buy things when they are immersed in personal debt and high taxes and fees.

Our next mayor needs to hold the brakes on spending, increasing taxes and fees, and passing more regulations (we actually need to work on eliminating some). We need to get back to providing reliable public services at an affordable rate. The monument building needs to put on hold, and we need to focus on the most important thing in our city – IT’s PEOPLE!

Mayor Huether Got ‘SH*T’ Done

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I couldn’t agree more with that statement. During his last hour long ‘Ask the Mayor’ they did a tour of his office, on one of the shelves was this book next to a couple drink tumblers. They never commented on the book.

But one of the more astonishing moments was when Reed asked Mike if there was any disappointments during his term, or things he didn’t get done. He said he could only think of one, but said he tried to fix it, and that was Public Transit. Really?!

I wasn’t expecting him to throw himself under the bus, but you couldn’t think of ANYTHING ELSE?! Nothing!?

While I could comment on a host of things in his final propaganda show, the one thing that sticks out is he never really mentions that being an elected official is really about SERVING the PUBLIC. You will notice it was all about HIM and GETTING THINGS DONE. I’m glad he will go back to ‘Being Fun Again’ for his daughter.

40 days left folks. 40 days!