South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Minnehaha County

County Commission Minnehaha County

Dennis Olson for Minnehaha County Commission

l3wis 6Comments

image001

Dennis Olson. Sometimes people without ‘connections’ do the best job.

Usually the day you get a rejection letter (see below) that you didn’t make the final cut, you don’t go endorsing other people. But the heck with it, I am in a giving mood.

The County Commission picked their ‘finalists’ today;

Five finalists have been named to replace John Pekas on the Minnehaha County Commission. Pekas resigned his seat after being elected a circuit court judge in November.

The finalists include:

  • Former Brandon Valley school board member Jean Bender.
  • Sioux Falls radio host and former mayor of the city of Sioux Falls, Rick Knobe.
  • Former Brandon city administrator, Dennis Olson.
  • Sioux Falls health care executive John Paulson.
  • Former Minnehaha County Commissioner Carol Twedt.


The remaining commissioners and the county auditor will appoint the new commissioner. They will make their selection no later than January 20th.

After eliminating the obvious (A former mayor and radio DJ, a former commissioner, that would only be a seat warmer for the next two years, a Sanford Health Executive, WTF?! and a prominent attorney in town married to big time commercial realtor, Michael Bender) I decided it came down to only one choice. A former city administrator (worked for Brandon since 1988) Dennis Olson.

If any of the others get in, big money, big real estate, big healthcare and big mouths have just penetrated another hole into our county commission.

ALSO, I hope the CC releases the names of the other applicants before they select the new one. If anyone reading this today got this same letter, please email me at (fb.art@sio.midco.net) or comment. I would love to compile the list.

Click to enlarge below letter

letter-rejection

County Commission Minnehaha County

Commissioner Dick Kelly votes against re-electing chair

l3wis 3Comments

If you watch the meeting from this morning (FF: 10:40) you will see why Kelly votes against re-electing Cindy Heiberger for chair. He felt it should go to a new person, then reminds the commissioners that Cindy voted against him two years ago. Not sure what that was all about, but Barth made light of the situation and said that while he felt he should be elected as chair, he would support Cindy. She was re-elected on a 3-1 vote and Beninga was elected co-chair.

The commission also voted to not give themselves a raise this year, while Barth’s recommendation of a 1% raise failed.

They also closed the open commission seat application process and said they had 29 applicants to choose from. That’s a lot of paper to shred 🙂

Democrats Minnehaha County Sioux Falls

Minnehaha County Dems get their party on!

l3wis 6Comments

party_democrat

On Monday, December 29th, 5-7 PM, the Minnehaha County Democratic Party will host a reception at the Falls Overlook Cafe at 825 N Weber Avenue in Sioux Falls to thank all of the Democratic candidates and volunteers, past and present, for their hard work and all past and present Democratic candidates will be honored for their hard work and dedication to the Party’s core values of Fairness, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunity.

Save the date and join your local Democratic officials as they celebrate everyone’s hard work and look to the future. Champagne and hor devours will be served. Tickets are $25.00 and they are available at the door.

County Commission Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls

Huether says government can be run like a business

l3wis 3Comments

I have often shaken my head when Huether suggests this. They are not the same, for several reasons.

To my surprise I found this page in a booklet I was reading from the SD Association of County Commissioners. The booklet is called ‘So You Want to Be A County Commissioner’.

I thought the one page was very concise in explaining the differences.

The middle part that I highlighted actually intrigued me the most. While they are referencing County Government, I think Municipal Government would apply. Notice ‘Sharing decisions’, ‘Public involvement’ and ‘Public Eye’.

Huether prefers to run the city like a business because he doesn’t like to share the ball with the city legislators, the council, or the general public. He acts as the CEO of the city instead of a fellow lawmaker.

I want to remind Mike, once again, that government and business ARE not alike.

government-business

 

Minnehaha County

Minnehaha County Commission appoints election review commission

l3wis 9Comments

Before I go into it about how this has turned out to be a total Kangaroo Kourt, the appointments;

Kea Warne (Public Employee, SD Department of Ag, former Elections Supervisor for the SOS)

Lorie Hogstad (Public Employee, Sioux Falls City Clerk)

Bruce Danielson (Citizen)

Sue Roust (Former auditor and elected official)

Joel Arends (Citizen, attorney)

Julie Pearson (Pennington County Auditor)

Deb Elofson (Citizen, Minnehaha County Democratic Party, Political director at Craft & Associates)

When they originally discussed how this process was supposed to go, Commissioner Kelly recommended that NO elected officials sit on this commission, which I agree, but as you can tell, they threw the bath water out with the baby, and have several former and current elected officials and public employees REVIEWING themselves. That seems fair 🙁

I was originally asked by Jeff Barth to be on the commission, and I accepted his invitation, but when he relayed that information to county administrators they had to call a whaaabulance about Jeff’s choice, so he chose someone else.  The commission is so lucky they have administrators making choices for the commissioners, kind of reminds me of the directors telling city councilors what to do. I told Jeff I wanted to serve to keep a record more then anything about the proceedings, not to make a mockery of it. I also think I have covered enough of these elections to know what has and hasn’t work. When super precincts were first introduced by city clerk Owen, I saw the potential for problems, and there were, they promised those kinks would be worked out, but they haven’t, they have only made the process confusing. The first proposal I would bring to the table is the elimination of super precincts and a common election process within our city.

Besides Debra, Joel and Bruce, this Kourt seems to be stacked with people who cannot possibly give a fair assessment of the situation. There are several defenders of the SOS’s office, Bob’s office and the offending software supplier ES & S, not to mention defenders of our very clunky government processes when it comes to elections. Elections are NOT about saving money or new fangled devices, they are about fairness.

The findings should be interesting.

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