Redistricting Sioux Falls

Is Rolfing returning to council chambers next week to defend his stupid election rule?

l3wis July 2, 2025 3Comments

The rumor from city hall moles is that former councilor Tex Golfing (Rex Rolfing) will be returning to Carnegie to defend his stupid runoff rule. I wonder if he will bring his T-Bone gavel and hammer the gavel puck until it flys thru the air again? What a guy. I encourage anyone testifying to change the rule back to 34% plurality to wear an outrageous, loud, large hats, Rolfing loves hats at public input!

You know where I stand, simple plurality should be enough, and 34% is fine with me. There are some other points;

• While in a general election where no candidate in a particular race gets 50+1 normally the candidate who gets the most votes in the general gets fewer votes in the runoff because the turnout is lower. So how is getting a lower percentage of votes but a higher number of votes in the general any different then getting fewer votes in the runoff but a higher percentage? It’s an exercise in insanity, and it costs us (even though I never have liked the argument of cost savings when it comes to elections, doesn’t matter).

• Councilors Spellerberg and Sigette got ZERO votes (0%) and they are sitting on the dais. Why? Because they filled out the paperwork and followed the rules and protocol. So are they unqualified since NO ONE voted for them? Not at all. They did the work, doesn’t matter how many people voted for them.

• Also, if the runoff rule applied to the presidential election, Harris and Trump would have been in a runoff (Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote). So is Trump illegitimate (sure for other reasons) but he followed the election rules and he won, and just because he didn’t get 50+1 doesn’t persuade me he didn’t win fairly.

• It also edges out the grassroots candidates because of fund raising, or as Tim Stanga said last night during public input, “It gives us well funded deer in headlight candidates.” I think I know who he was referring to, but I won’t beat that dead horse, I mean deer.

The rule has only been used once since it was implemented 8 years ago and it was in the recent election. I disagree with Jordan Deffenbaugh’s testimony that runoffs help grassroots candidates, they do NOT. As a grassroots candidate you have to hit it hard and early, that is the secret, the longer the campaign the more you will be outspent.

They need to ditch this asinine rule it get us back to sanity with our elections.

I think only 3 councilors support changing it back, but it will take 6 votes to protect it from a mayoral veto, don’t see that happening.

UPDATE ON $100 MILLION IN PROFESSIONAL CONTRACTS WITHOUT RFP’S

My city hall moles have been telling me it is much worse then just leaving out the RFPs, one of the main reasons these contractors are being picked without RFPs because over 50% of them are out of state companies that have direct competition in Sioux Falls (in other words we have the local contractors to do the work). So why is hiring a local professional contractor better then out of state? First off, if something goes haywire, easier to sue. Secondly, local contractors hire local people and that profit is recirculated in the community. In other words when your taxdollars pay for a service, that money paid to the provider gets recirculated in the town. When you use an out of state contractor, that goes straight out the door. That’s why the Denty is a money vaccum. Another reason to use non-RFP out-of-state contractors is to cover up work the city may be doing that they don’t want the constituents to know about. When you put out an RFP for a repair job, people start asking questions, you know like damaged roofs on city owned buildings. The audit committee needs to do a full audit of all out-of-state, non-RFP, professional contracts that have been granted over the past 7 years.