I have been waiting for Rex to return from the Orange Juice state to actually campaign in person (still haven’t seen him). He is is relying on the ‘R’ behind his name, a few yard signs and this recent mailer to put him over the top.
Got a really good chuckle out of his ‘VISION’
Just go to sfmeetings.org and type in Rex Rolfing, and see his voting record for yourself.
Fiscally responsible. WOW! In the 8 years (2008-16) Rex served on the city council he voted for EVERY single fee and tax increase. He also voted for millions in TIFs and bonding, including the Indoor Pool, Huether Tennis Center ($500K), Administration building that we did not need and the The Denty that has never paid it’s mortgage EVER through revenue.
Rex wouldn’t know what fiscal responsibility was if it hit him like a Jesus snow plow.
He also did ZERO to improve workforce while he served on the council, except voting for an expenditure to put billboards of the former mayor’s face all over Minneapolis.
He also followed the marching orders of his former boss and police chief by ignoring our drug and crime issues for 8 years.
Besides the glaring hypocrisy of Rex’s vision, we also forget that;
• He trumped up false ethics violations towards councilor Stehly, in which he had a freak out session where the puck under the gavel went flying thru the air. He even made light of it later by pretending the bone above he is chewing on in the picture was a gavel and started rapping it on the table like a gavel after covering the end in tin foil.
• Rex said publicly he doesn’t want his contact information on mailings even though his city owned council email address and phone number are public information.
• Lastly, his only (non)accomplishment on the council was passing a silly ordinance about having a majority instead of a plurality in council races, which only makes elections more expensive for both taxpayers and candidates (hopefully the city council will overturn this soon, but I see they are waiting until after the election so they won’t make him look bad-chickensh*ts).
Let’s face it. Rex is NOT fiscally responsible, he is NOT ethical, he does NOT believe in government transparency and he is willing to throw anyone under the bus he doesn’t agree with.
There is whole host of other things I could say about this VOID of leadership, but I won’t. I will leave you with a paragraph from a postcard I also got today from his competitor, Kelly Sullivan;
She pretty much sums up Rex Rolfing and his ilk in one sentence. Living in a bouncy house.
Do as I did as a D13 voter, fill only one box out for the House Race. Kelly Sullivan.
He would probably put the bone in his hair if he had any.
Besides making it more expensive to run for a city council seat (pushed for rule to have a majority of the vote to win a council seat)* Rex also successfully gave away valuable city taxpayer land for a veterans cemetery. While I am NOT opposed to a State Veterans Cemetery, I think the taxpayers of Sioux Falls SHOULD be reimbursed for the land either by Feds or State. Sorry, I disagree that this is a ‘tourist attraction’ as some in the state legislature would have us think. It is Memorial Sanctuary. But I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.
*The council is working on over turning that rule, soon.
Besides making things more expensive for Sioux Falls residents, Rex also approved every single tax increase and fee increase that came before him on the council, he also wanted the siding settlement to remain silent, he pushed for the administration building we didn’t need and he orchestrated false allegations of ethics violations against Councilor Stehly after going gavel bananners on her at a informational council meeting.
I guess if you like higher taxes, misogyny, poor temperament and little other action, I say vote for Rolfing for the legislature in District 13.
But I would suggest a better choice, Kelly Sullivan.
Oh, shucks, I guess I’ll have to drop this wood off in Canton.
While absentee voting today at the Minnehaha County Auditor’s office Rex Rolfing walked in and says, “Is this where I absentee vote?” Which made me kind of laugh. He said ‘Hi’ to me and sat at the ID table, than he says to me, “Are you going to vote for me?” I explained to him I was an independent and couldn’t, “but if I was a Republican and could, you know the answer to that question.”
I walked out not even realizing until someone told me later that Rex was probably turned away because he is a Lincoln County resident, and in a primary he MUST vote in his county. I wish I would have stuck around to see that.
But what I also didn’t realize is that as a candidate you cannot solicit a vote at a polling place. While I knew Rex was joking, as he knew the answer to the question, I wonder if he knows asking that question is against the law.
Looks like another person running to make laws in Pierre without understanding those laws to begin with. BTW, Rex, your County Seat is in Canton. Just go South a few miles, you will find it.
So he sends out a contribution letter and doesn’t even put his phone number on it? He has learned absolutely nothing his 8 years on the city council. There was nothing ‘grassroots’ about Rolfing’s election to the council. I was surprised he knew what the word ‘lean’ even means. With the mayor’s help and the rubberstamp council Rolfing never backed down from spending your money. Racking up over $200 million in bond debt (He never voted against any controversial projects like the DT Parking Ramp and Administration building) and going along with the over 50 increases in taxes and fees. If you liked Rolfing on the council, you’ll love him in Pierre.
Well if you think the State Legislature gets nothing accomplished now, elect Rolfing for more do nothingness. The sad part is he would not have been able to run in my District if it wasn’t for Gerrymandering of Lincoln County.
Not sure why I was thinking about this, but recently Rex Rolfing said that city buildings like the admin building cost more because the city builds buildings to last 100 years.
Not sure what buildings he was referring to?
Let’s look at City Hall, it has weathered well but has needed upgrades.
The only other building I can think of is the Arena, ironically a building we want to tear down. Good luck.
Let’s look at this stellar resume of ‘100 year old’ buildings.
Canaries Stadium. As I understand it, it was built in the 90’s and is falling apart. Some have suggested we bulldoze it.
Convention Center. This place has seen many repairs. In fact it’s roof repair was part of the siding settlement.
Washington Pavilion. Supposed to cost $19 million and cost more than $50 million to date, including two roof repairs, and fixing the foundation, and more fixes to come.
Aquatic Center. As I understand it one of the pools needed to be fixed for a leak shortly after being opened.
Events Center. A building that has siding that has to be checked more often than an patient with Heart Disease.
Now we come to the $25 million dollar Admin building. I guess we will have to wait and see how it holds up, but if history has taught us anything, the city doesn’t have a stellar record of building ‘100 year old’ buildings.
If you watch the City Council meeting last nightyou will see councilor Rolfing up to his normal head shaking, I am right attitude with his right hand man, Mike ‘Rude Boy’ Huether returning to run the meeting.
It didn’t take long for Mike to insult someone at public input, accusing a local attorney of not being ‘organized’. In fact, the attorney was doing what a good attorney does, speaking slow and methodically to present his case. But Mr. Ramrod wasn’t having it, luckily though councilor Stehly was able to extend his time.
I have already threatened to register Republican so I can vote for Noem in the primary, but with this latest revelation, I could also use my switcheroo to vote against Rolfing.
Please, my Republican friends, let’s retire this disaster of a public servant on May 15th for good.
Leave it to Rex Rolfing to get one last dig in on Stehly before he leaves. Ironically his stint on Inside Town Hall was supposed to be about a cemetery and his ‘accomplishments’ on city council. He could only name things that we the taxpayer’s paid for (but didn’t get to have a say in).
When mentioning the indoor pool at Spellerberg he commented that it should have been built at Drake Springs and that just a ‘few’ people got involved and a ‘few’ people voted against in an indoor pool.
Actually, Stehly and Co. collected several thousand signatures and several thousand voters approved an outdoor pool at the location.
As for the location, as I have mentioned numerous times, Nelson park would have been a terrible location for an indoor pool due to ground water issues as our very own aquatic consultant told us when recommending the Spellerberg location.
What is even more troubling is that Rolfing made these statements about a fellow councilor (without saying her name) on a media source funded by taxpayers. He also rips on her at the end of the show about not collaborating. Not sure if my memory serves me, but I think there is an ethics violation in there somewhere.
He was also asked what he would tell future councilors, he would recommend changing public input, he said in his opinion it is ‘Too Darn Long.’ He went on to rant that ‘he can’t have everyone in Sioux Falls telling him what to do.’ Hey Rex, you know as a councilor you are a representational officer of the people? He basically defends his votes that are against the citizenry on closed government. LOL! A closed government he adamantly supported.
Isn’t it amazing this guy has learned nothing about government in the 8 long years he has been there. Rex, do you need help moving to Florida?
Last Tuesday night I decided to join the many fellow citizens of Sioux Falls who opposed the golf course RFP / RFQ process. As someone who does not play golf anymore, my input was on process, not because I would have anything to gain. When Detroit Lewis left the podium, I went up with my trusty clipboard.
Recently the city started blocking my exhibits during my input time so I decided to bring my exhibits on the back of a clipboard. This one seems to bother a couple of the members of the dais:
Rex Rolfing seems to get upset by hats and other things, did not like my clipboard and asked the mayor to force me to take it down. When the mayor shook his head and refused to do it,
but the camera changed to a close-up without the “offending†clipboard.
As I tried to conclude my thoughts about federal crime and city government Rex continued to interrupt mentioning to the dais I was at least not getting a one finger salute while speaking.
See the entire show with MayorCam and RexCam running. This whole process has been delayed by not posting the CityLink / SIRE video immediately as usual and then a strange flaw at the 37% point, approximately where my input was. I was next thinking I would see a frozen video or floating Wizard of Kiley head again.
“God doesn’t seek for golden vessels, and does not ask for silver ones, but He must have clean ones.” – Dwight L Moody.
Yesterday during the Sioux Falls city council informational meeting, councilor Rex Rolfing couldn’t help himself, he had to put in a dig at Part-Time Mayor (councilor) Theresa Stehly.
In Stehly’s quest for transparency she continually asks for open RFPs. This hasn’t been sitting well with Rolfing, he continues to hammer home the LIE that state law requires RFPs to NOT be public. This of course is untrue. Municipalities in South Dakota have the CHOICE to make none, some or all of RFPs open and transparent. Sioux Falls chooses to make them NOT open. I reminded Rolfing of this at the council meeting after he accused Stehly of making Sioux Falls city government seem secretive and ‘sinister’ by continually asking for open and transparent government. I went on to say, “I don’t think there has ever been a city in South Dakota get in trouble for being too open.”
I get it, he is opposed to transparency and thinks government works best if it keeps important contracts from citizens. As we have been learning over the past couple of months, secrecy is getting us into a lot of trouble and eroding the public trust. It’s blatantly obvious.
Of course councilors Rolfing, Erickson, and Erpenbach (and others) seem to think that the city council is pretty clean. And they probably are, except not recusing themselves on items that benefit people who fill their campaign coffers.
Are they investing in city projects? Don’t know. Several of them, at least Erickson, Neitzert and Erpenbach say they are not. I’m willing to listen, but when it comes to the mayor coming clean during public meetings, he changes the subject. Which puzzles me.
Wouldn’t this be a perfect opportunity for mayor Huether to have a press conference confirming he is NOT investing in city development projects OR projects that the city has fast tracked and approved? Personally I think such an action would wreak of hypocrisy. The mayor has admitted in the past that he does invest with city development, and developers have admitted he or his wife have invested money in local development, his wife invested in a project that got a city TIF and his private tennis center that bears his name at the Sanford Sports Complex has received $500k from the city with little to no benefit to citizens.
So if Rolfing and others on the council want to claim the city is clean when it comes to investing in development projects, shouldn’t they encourage the leader and chief executive of the city to tell us where he stands instead continuing to spread lies and innuendo?
Nope. It’s just easier to keep things secret because we know the latter would be disastrous to Mike’s delicate ego and reputation. We wouldn’t want to be known as the city with a ‘sinister’ mayor.
