When a politician has to tell you they are honest, ah, well . . .
Wow. Sometimes it’s the little things at the council meetings that makes you laugh, cry or just scratch your head. After listening to Rex Rolfing’s stab at last night’s invocation you would probably be left doing all three. And to think, I am afraid of some of the extreme things Manny Steele says. Rolfing’s version of a council ‘blessing’;
“The US Election of 2012 brought discord and division. The results left half the nation feeling disaster that could have been avoided and the other half felt ruin was near.” Then he quotes Martin Luther, “Christians should pray for bad leaders.”
Not sure ‘WHO’ Rolfing was talking about, but I will say this, even if I am not a Christian, I will still pray for him, the mayor and the rest of the council, even if I don’t think it will do much good.
And the big winners are Erpenbach (over $9KÂ and Huether (over $50K). Documents:
What I find even more interesting is the in common donors. And these are not just dead beat rich folk in town. Who says the mayor’s office doesn’t work with the city council. Besides Michelle & Huether double-teaming the termination of Owen, looks like they send their contribution letters to the same peeps;
Doug Hajek (handles a lot of legal work with bonds for the city, including the EC. Doug is married to state legislator, Anne Hajek.
Craig Lloyd (the owner of the largest development company in Sioux Falls and also the recipient of the most TIF’s in Sioux Falls)
Jeffrey Scherschligt (awarded a TIF and a taxpayer funded bulk head along the river greenway)
Dana Dykhouse (Head dude at First Premier Bank)
Michael Crane (developer and partner with Huether and his wife on projects)
Michael Bender (commercial realtor)
And the developers, attorneys & bankers don’t get what they want, yeah right.
I also viewed Rolfing & Aguliar’s financials, but did not post them. Neither raised any money in December. My guess that neither will seek re-election.
Councilor Staggers has recently been pulling items from the consent agenda. During yesterday’s informational, he asked to pull the minutes from the last meeting (for a correction) and the Phillips Avenue Holiday Lights expenditure. Well that did not sit well with councilor Rolfing. He went into a tirade about inconveniencing city employees who might have to come to a council meeting and answer a question.
WHAT?!
First off, the consent agenda is at the beginning of the meeting, if a department head had to come to a meeting to answer a question, they would be there 20 minutes tops. Secondly, most department heads are at the meeting anyway for other agenda items, and lastly, THEY ARE GETTING PAID like the councilors to do the public’s work, which may include attending the council meeting. If there are certain department heads and city employees that feel like they are being inconvenienced, I haven’t heard that. In fact for the over ten years I have watched the city council meetings I have only seen one person complain about how long the meetings are, a councilor, De Knudson. Rolfing seems to be crying wolf about a problem that does not exist.
Fortunately, councilors Karsky, Anderson and even Erpenbach defended the practice of pulling items from the consent agenda and the city attorney agreed to help with a better process.
Personally, I have not been a fan of the consent agenda, I think every item should be pulled and voted on separately, but since that is not the case, as Karsky pointed out, it is well within the power of the council to pull items from the consent agenda.
Trust me, I knew how this was going to go down tonight. I knew it would probably fail.
But the process was not honored. Five councilors didn’t honor their oath to US Constitution to uphold democratic ideals, holding timely elections per request of citizen petition signers. It’s shameful, lustful, greedy, and COWARDLY. These are your five councilors that are COWARDS!
The worst part is that Council Coward Chair Erpenbach decided to implement one of her made up, pro-censorship, anti-1st amendment rules and limiting public testimony to 20 minutes (Think SF School Board meetings). That is why I was not allowed to speak, though I raised my hand.
If I would have had the opportunity (But apparently this city now is a dictatorship ran by a coward called Michelle Erpenbach) I would essentially said this;
I have been watching city government longer then any of you have even served up here. You are very predictable, but I am hoping tonight I would not have to predict the normal, self-interest, cowardly action to protect the ruling class from the working class of this city. I think it is incredibly pathetic that I even have to come here and beg my elected officials to uphold their constitutional duties they swore on in an oath. This is a slam dunk, your constituents have followed the letter of the law gathering these signatures and turning them in. Your job is easy. Vote YES to secure a timely election, any other action would be shameful, cowardly and unconstitutional.
