UPDATE: Dead air on Multicultural Center
l3wis UPDATE: I guess Rich Merkouris talked about the MCC and Data Centers on this podcast. Ellis tried to claim that if this Data Center meets the criteria of the rezone the council doesn’t have a choice but to approve it. Yes, this is TRUE, but they DON’T meet the criteria;
As for the MCC they did apply for funding and were denied. But it sounds like they may be working on something. Sneve asked him if the public is perceiving the council as prejudice towards immigrants by cutting these programs. Merkouris said he didn’t see the correlation because they fund the Dudley house and that population is diverse. That is true, but most of them are natural born citizens and not immigrants, also there is difference between teaching English and housing someone on a cold night. A big difference. And if you don’t educate immigrants they may end up at the Dudley.
We all know why this happening. It’s Trump’s war on brown people and the orgs that provide services to them. It has been a wet dream of Republiscum for decades to kill Luthern Social Services. I guess I don’t care WHO teaches immigrants English, maybe the School District should be doing it but killing needed services without having a full review of their programming is awful. According to Merkouris this went thru several review processes (all in closed door behind the scenes meetings). They just never learn!!!! And that is the one thing that bothered me most about the interview. Ellis and Sneve of course take the side of government and feel they should approve the Data Centers because they are simply following the law (they are NOT) and the citizens opinion doesn’t matter (Sneve made a wisecrack about it.) I would expect those two to say these things, but what astonished me was how Merkouris kept justifying these steps by following the proper procedures (they are not, because this stuff is not being done transparently). Not one single time did Merkouris acknowledge he works for the people of this community, and I think that says it all. We know who butters the council’s bread, and it ain’t Joe Smoe.
As for approving the Data Centers under current zoning regs that part is also troublesome. It is obvious to me they are trying to pull permits and break ground before July 1, 2026. Why? Because if the legislature passes regs this session they would likely go into affect on July 1st, so if they start building before then they don’t have to follow the new laws because they will be grandfathered in.
To tell you the truth, the council should just defer this rezone until July 2, 2026, and force them to follow the new regs. But that would take foresight and vision. 🙂
Original Post ——–
So when the mayor dropped his bomb right before Christmas eliminating funding for MCC and several other non-profits I suspected the council would be working behind the scenes to restore the funding or work out a long-term solution. Who am I freaking kidding?! So I went radio silence after the announcement because I wanted to see how the council would handle this without me rattling them. I usually email, call or text 1 or 2 councilors a week. Ever since this announcement I have said nothing and I have not gotten any messages from them about what they are working on.
They are ‘probably’ working on something behind the scenes, but it is radio silence. I also found the timing of the cancellation a total A$$HOLE move. But we don’t need to go into that.
When there are hot topics with the city I usually have a couple of people ask me about the issue. On this one, people are crawling over each other to talk to me about it. No kidding. Last night at the Orion Pub I had over a dozen individuals ask me about it. I know that’s not scientific, but shocking to me. It’s bad and the little game of cutting funding right before Christmas when city government is on a 2 week vacation is NOT encouraging.
Believe it or not, I am urging the council to do NOTHING. Let this funding relapse occur.
So why do I want them to do nothing?
I watched the library funding fiasco and how the council was put in a corner because of the turd in the corner office. Don’t do this again! Let the mayor own this. Let the public inform him of his bad decisions. You let this guy get away with soooo much, then you take the blame, and cry in the corner. Probably one of the weakest councils I have seen in 20 years. You need to eat more STEAK! LOL.
DATA CENTER NEEDS TO BE KILLED AT THE BALLOT BOX
As I mentioned before I think a petition drive CAN be done to stop this, but it will take HUNDREDS of volunteers and the cooperation of many orgs. I have mentioned these before;
• Sustainability Task Force (these folks spent months developing a plan only for the mayor to have his pumpkin pusher take a leak on it).
• National Dem Party, the State Dem party or at least the Minnehaha County Dems.
• The mayoral campaigns of Batcheller and Smith.
• Knobe’s group The Change Makers.
• Indivisible 605 (They organize the No Kings Rallies, and actually have one planned on the same day the council will approve the rezone on Data Center. The rally ends at 5 PM and I would encourage everyone to attend and speak at the city council meeting at 6 PM against the rezone, even if they will still vote yes, this will be important to the petition drive publicity).
I think these folks, if teamed together could get 10,000 sigs in less then 24 days! I would also unify advocates! I often roll my eyes at supposed local advocacy groups who write a couple letters to the editor and send STERN emails to legislators. Give it up. Real advocacy happens in the field, talking to folks on the ground.
I think this petition drive could be uniting, even if you don’t get the sigs or some judge with deep pockets in the city throws it out, it will send a clear message that the citizens are fed up with the city council making poor decisions that affect our daily lives and expenses.
We WILL SEE if these groups act or just drink tea, eat gummies and write letters that no one reads 🙂 Kinda like how I run my blog 🙂 and that is why I could never do it alone. Hey folks! It takes a village! But yah gotta leave your hut.
