I guess I didn’t have too many high expectations out of a retired insurance salesman anyway.
At the council meeting tonight during the parking ramp debate, Councilor Stehly showed an image of her postcard she recently mailed out that listed all the councilors contact information (city email addresses and phone #’s NOT private). Rolfing, being the ignoramus he normally is reiterated to the public that he has told Stehly not to use his public contact information on her mailings she pays for personally.
Not up to you Rex, it is public information. The tax payers pay for that service and we OWN your public email address and phone number, you do not. And since you don’t own them Rex, you have NO authority to tell Stehly whether she can use them or not.
I am deeply troubled by Councilor Theresa Stehly’s recent letterto the editor titled, “Secrecy in golf management selection a concern.†Unfortunately, this letter is a classic example of a politician stirring the pot in order gain nonstop publicity in our local media.
Publicity? Stehly has two and half years left on her council term and she is NOT running for mayor, what publicity is she seeking? The only thing Stehly continues to publicize is her support for open government, 100% of the time. It was her campaign issue that won her her seat.
The RFP process reduces the risk to those who compete in the process by protecting the proprietary information of those who are unsuccessful.
When doing business with the public and receiving public money for your services your proprietary information is NO longer private, it becomes public. If those who seek public contracts don’t understand that or agree to those terms, they have the choice NOT to participate in the process. It really is that simple.
Publicizing unsuccessful proposals would severely limit those willing to participate if any thus reducing competition and driving up costs to the taxpayers.
I actually believe it would have an opposite affect. If competition can see who is competing and their proposals it will only drive them to put together a better and more fiscally prudent proposal. It would actually not only save taxpayers money but we would get better services. We found this out with the Pavilion window replacement contract. Once the initial bid was discovered to be inadequate competitors were able to under bid it and save taxpayers thousands of dollars. Closed bids and committees only give us one option, a piss poor way to do business.
As a person who works as an estimator I and am consistently wanting to know what my competition is charging so I can be more competitive. In private business sometimes that information is hard to get, but don’t think we don’t seek it out. I have done government bids throughout the country for states, municipalities and the Federal government and we are always told what the competing bids and offers are at the end of the day. Rolfing’s analogy of local government RFP’s is certainly NOT the norm because it defies that whole nature of free enterprise, competition and a the democratic process. He is delusional, as usual.
I would like to conclude my letter by recognizing those who have served on these committees especially our citizen volunteers. Thank you for your willingness to serve even while some attempt to politicize your efforts. I also ask our citizens to please learn all the facts and hear from both sides of any issue.
So why are certain ‘citizens’ privy to this information, but not all of us? Elected officials who strive for open and transparent government are NOT politicizing anything, they are promoting good government, and I applaud them for it. I also find it ironic that Rolfing is asking citizens to learn all the facts first before drawing conclusions. Isn’t kind of hard to receive those facts when you won’t share them with us? Your assurance is not enough, we found that out with the siding settlement which was a gigantic lie.
Often times those who yell the loudest fear you hearing all the facts.
To that I say, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
Here is the first time the rippling siding is mentioned by Rolfing at a city council informational meeting. (FF: 24:00). Notice the answer from Mortenson if it is an ‘Issue’. The rep says, “I’m not saying that.”
It took Mayor Mike Huether’s tie-breaking vote this week to make it harder to win City Council elections.
The city’s top executive rarely casts votes on City Council matters, but it’s been happening at a greater clip since four new members were voted onto the 8-member legislative body last year.
And I guarantee you are going to see more of it. I suspect that since Mike, Michelle and Rex are lame ducks* they are going to be proposing ‘wish-list’ legislation all the way until the end of their terms, especially with Rex’s  success on Tuesday night, it will only embolden them. They have been salivating for awhile to get rid of public input and I also know that they are not fans of transparency. It will be interesting to watch what other crazy ordinances they propose, or what crazy ones pass. I suspect that many of them would be overturned by the next council, like the recent election threshold.
I told several councilors to prepare themselves for the onslaught.
UPDATE: It’s interesting Munson used his ties on budget or procedural issues primarily. Huether has used his in retribution, anti-citizen or plaything spending. Spreadsheet from 2006; Mayoral-tie-2006
*While Rex and Michelle have probably put death nails in their future plans for elected office, there is still a scenario for Huether. While I strongly feel that Huether really needed to announce his candidacy for governor last month, he may be looking at another approach. The primary isn’t until June. Could Huether think he really doesn’t need to officially jump into this until he absolutely has to? You never know.
During the debate over the election threshold to 51% (FF 1:00), Rolfing called public input ‘Garbage’ than went on to say that he felt ‘sick’ as well as councilor Erpenbach because SEVEN years ago they didn’t get 50% of the vote.
Stehly pointed out that if they felt so ‘sick’ about it, why did it take them SEVEN years to propose this. She also pointed out she has heard NOTHING over the past SEVEN years that this was a problem, from either Rolfing, Erpenbach or the public.
It of course passed, 4-5. Selberg, Rolfing, Erpenbach, Kiley and Mayor Huether voted to make our elections more expensive for candidates and taxpayers because Rolfing’s tummy hurt over the past SEVEN years.
I have seen councils pass some pretty crazy sh*t over the past decade but this takes the cake. It is a gigantic slap in the face of past councilors who have served since 1996 who didn’t get over 50% of the vote and a slap in the face of the taxpayers who have to fund additional unneeded elections that they most likely WILL NOT attend.
In fact, councilor Neitzert put up a graphic showing voter turnout over the past decade(?). Guess which municipal election had the highest turnout (41%) the Event Center. Which was only an advisory vote that didn’t have any legal precedent.
I said during public input that maybe instead of spending $80K on a runoff election, we should spend it on promoting municipal elections. But what do I know, I’m just a pile of garbage.
Let’s just stop pretending citizens can be involved in the process called city government.
A RexCam exclusive for you. Sioux Falls City Council members Rex Rolfing, Michelle Erpenbach and Rick Kiley making fools of themselves on September 12, 2017.
Why would we place such authoritarians in office? Why should we respect people who want to take away the rights of average citizens because they could not get their own way in an election?
We are seeing voters being purged from the rolls.
We are seeing intimidation being used to keep people from voting.
We see areas with no voting location.
We see voting locations moved from one location this election to a different location in the next.
These things are not happening in far off lands, these are thing happening right here in Sioux Falls.
The vote taken to change the way elections are settled in Sioux Falls is a way to restrict our access to the process. Listen to the buffoons talk about how illegitimate they felt when they won their first elections. Feel the pain two of them felt on their 2010 election nights. Why did they wait 7 years until their friend lost an election to decide to change the rules? Those of us who pay attention to these things know when to poor the barnyard out of our boots. We need to make sure one of these buffoons knows what it’s like to lose in 2018.
The mayor of Sioux Falls believes he is right as right can be, to limit the average citizens participation in the process. This is another reason why the mayor should NOT be sitting in Council meetings and breaking ties. If a tie vote happens, the proposal should just die until a majority compromise happens along. What do you think? Let’s band together to fix this Huetheristic mess called strong mayor government.
These people are pathetic, never let them return to elective or appointed office. They do not deserve the honor of pretending to represent us. I did this video to let all know how those leaving office want to put a lasting stamp on the process so we can’t be part of it.
I got an up close experience a few months ago with how big money corrupts local elections. Randy Dobberpuhl who placed 2nd in the school board election was out spent over 6-1 by Cynthia Mickelson who won the seat. The other two candidate who spent nothing or very little were creamed.
The rumored proposed amendment by Sioux Falls city councilors Rolfing and Erpenbach to garner 51% of the vote in a general election for city council or go to a runoff is a ruse to eliminate the grassroots candidates that don’t have deep pockets.
“I would like to encourage our citizens to get involved in public service. It will make a wonderful difference for our town,†says Mayor Mike Huether.
At the time it seemed MMM was concerned there would not be any candidates for council. We should be doing everything possible to make it easier for regular people to run for office instead of making it more expensive not only for the candidates but for the taxpayers. If we want to make real change, the city needs to do a better job of educating people about upcoming elections instead of playing this game with money.
I’m hoping Kenny Anderson and Randy Dobberpuhl will attend this Tuesday’s council meeting to speak out against the money grab, and all other candidates considering a run this Spring.
If you look at Item #50, it seems harmless enough. They are changing some language pertaining to elections;
Notice there is NO change to the 34% threshold. So why not? With all the talk about councilors Rolfing and Erpenbach changing this, why wasn’t it changed in this 1st Reading?
Because the plan that is rumored they are going to use is a procedural trick. Basically they will wait for the 1st reading to pass, and when it comes up for a second reading they will offer and amendment to the 34% threshold to 51%.
Why would they do that? Because public testimony would be closed before amendments would be offered.
I am still hoping that with the media coverage of this proposed change will get them to back off on the amendment. I guess we will all have to wait and see just how brazen they want to get with our election rules.
Yeah, worked for me, but I still want to ruin it for everyone else.
The rumors I am hearing from my Carnegie Hall moles is that this set of councilors want to change the 34% threshold to be elected to a council seat in a general election to a 51% threshold like the mayor. Not sure where this is even coming from, considering myself, or even other councilors, or the media have never thought there was a problem with the current threshold. In fact, maybe the better thing to change is to have the mayoral percentage match the council’s.
Before I get into the multiple arguments against this, let’s face it, this was cooked up by the mayor to make it harder for grassroots candidates like Stehly, Starr and Nietzert to run for office. Let’s say you win in the general but only get 40% of the vote and 2nd place has deeper pockets than you, guess who will probably win? This is clearly an elitist move, the public is certainly not that naive to think otherwise.
But let’s throw a little common sense behind this;
• A runoff election in NON-mayoral election years could cost taxpayers an extra $80K.
• It is already difficult enough to get people out to vote during a general muni election, think about getting them to come back 2-3 weeks later for a run-off.
• The state legislature, school board and the county commission all go by top vote getters.
• Ironically the two that are proposing this change are out the door this Spring and benefitted from the current set of rules. Rolfing won his first term in 2010 with 45.34% of the vote and Erpenbach won her first term in 2010 with 48.96% of the vote. If you look at other races since the 2000 municipal election, you will see that 7 other councilors won by receiving less than 51% of the vote. (DOC: runoffs)
Like I said, this is a ploy to keep the working class grass roots candidates down and the elitists with deep pockets or donors with deep pockets on the rubberstamp council.
Hopefully Rolfing and Erpenbach will have a change of heart and pull this ridiculous measure from future agendas, or they can face the music.
As you can see, I tested the waters last night to see if Rex Rolfing would have a cow about me wearing a bandana during public input, he didn’t pout and walk out and didn’t say a word. I did give him a show later in the meeting by showing him how I can balance a water bottle on my head while he was staring at me sitting in the back row 🙂
Oh Rex, why do we enjoy watching you try to be the leader?
He has only been on the council for 7 years and almost 2 years in leadership, we should give him a break at knowing these things? Right?
We have been accused of making snippets so it gave Cameraman Bruce an idea, “Why not piece together snippet of the wise decisions and comments Rex Rolfing made during the meeting?” Well, here it is, 16 minutes of precedent setting activity while Mayor Mike was missing for the Tuesday, February 21, 2017 Sioux Falls City Council meeting.
Council members asked questions during input, invited citizens to come forward to make comments and we saw sever Points of Order called to get the meeting back on track.
Robert’s Rules in action, first time we are able to watch and enjoy the mess. Should we buy the Robert’s Rules for Dummys to keep up”
Why does everything fall apart when you least expect it? We now have Council members who are exercising their right to speak up. Enjoy as we did.
It's setting up to be another hot day in much of KELOLAND. However, we do have a better chance of scattered rain this afternoon across the east. More on the that story in moment. Highs yesterday reached the mid 90s in many areas from Aberdeen to Sioux Falls, a growing sign of the dry weather […]
