Entries Tagged 'Sioux Falls' ↓

The newest member of the RS6 spent more than any council candidate in the history of the city. In fact, it is 5 years worth of salary for a city councilor. Also remember, we have not seen the final financial report, that will be at year end. It will be interesting to see what the final amount is. Astounding for a seat that pays around $19K a year and has little power. So far he approximately spent $8 per vote.

The bigger question is will Alex recuse himself on votes for the city’s bank, which he works for. And what kind of rezones will he vote on that his employer is financing? This wasn’t just about getting rid of a pesky city councilor, this was about the players in town having their own councilor on the dais.

He was bought and paid for. I hope it was worth it. Likely not.

So Mayor Multi-Task was bragging about this story about Sioux Falls being a great place to start a career. Let’s assume you are single, let’s break down the numbers;

$35,942 Yearly Salary

Minus Taxes (30%)

$25,159

Minus Rent ($811 per month, $9,732)

$15,427

Minus Monthly Expenses

Groc – $200 (only food prepared and ate at home)

Health – $250 (premium)

Utilities – $200 (includes phone)

Car/Transporation – $600 (includes gas/ins/car payment)

-$1,250 per month

Left over per month $35.

Now I will admit that if you own your car, that could save you around $400 a month, but you also have to have maintenance and repairs, gas and insurance.

Basically you would have $35 per month left over for investments, savings, hospitality/entertainment, student loans, health insurance deductible and out of pocket expenses, etc. Sorry, but $35 dollars doesn’t even come close to covering these other expenses. This is why many young single people (and families) have multiple jobs, because they just can’t make it off of $35K a year and pay rent.

I have often felt that rent increases in Sioux Falls have far exceeded wage increases and the city council seriously needs to look at rent controls. But we also need to get wages up in this town. I wonder if Paul would like to live off of $35K a year? Maybe he is hinting we need to change the Mayor’s salary?

Funny how the treasurer who told me all along he wasn’t Alex’s campaign manager knows so much about the strategy that was used. Matt was Alex’s campaign manager and everyone knew it. It was one of the lousiest lies I have ever heard in a campaign. But telling the truth doesn’t win elections.

While I will agree with some of his points, let’s simply this;

• Raised a buttload of money (from the banksters and develpers) and spent around 10X more than his opponent.

• Campaigned 3X longer than his opponent.

• Used the extra time from a delayed election to campaign more to primary voters that don’t normally vote in city elections.

• Used the list of Mayor TenHaken’s supporters from 2018 to turn the tide in the SE districts. I figured they were going to do this early on. I got tipped off by a mole that was the list they were working from months ago.

There was no grand mystery here, it was really simple math that made Jensen the 6th member of the RS5. MONEY! And lots of it.

There has been a story circulating in our local rag that Stehly lost the race because her supporters did not show up and she was mean to Neitzert.

Hogwash!

First off, Stehly and Jensen both probably got more votes than any city councilor in the history of our city. Just because Theresa lost by 97 votes doesn’t mean her support wasn’t there.

As for Neitzert, she did the right thing by fighting him on all of his misguided votes on the administration building, the internal auditor and the Bunker Ramp and many more issues. If anything, her battles with him helped her.

I have said if the election was held on April 14th it would have been a landslide for her. Why? Because the normal percentage of voters who pay attention to city politics would have shown up and cast the appropriate informed vote. Covid threw a wrench in it. Not to mention the lackluster training of the poll workers, something virtually not brought up in the hit piece and the enormous amount of money from the banksters and developers spent on her opposing candidate.

This did not clearly happen. A bunch of uninformed, partisan, primary voters showed up to elect a ‘real’ establishment Republican to the city council, not having a clue that this was a non-partisan race. They may have been confused why there wasn’t an R or D behind their names. It was a perfect storm to get the partisan hack clems to show up to vote that think city government is about party politics. It is not, but this current administration and his lackeys have turned it into us against them.

Local government is about all of us. Republican, Democratic, Independent, minority, gay, straight, religious or non-religious and those of us who just don’t give a damn. Theresa lost because 98 more ignorant fools voted for the other guy. The math is really that simple.

I decided to break down today and pay the entrance fee to the Pavilion’s VAC to see the latest exhibit of the permanent collection. It was nice, because in the over an hour I was there, there wasn’t a single soul in the joint. Why? Because it cost me an astounding $15 dollars and change to get in. I have never paid this much to enter the MOMA in San Fran, the Institute in Chicago or Minneapolis or the DAM in Denver. Not sure why the Pavilion thinks charging this much to see dusty old paintings is worth that? But it’s all about the Benjamins with the Pavilion these days, even recently making the city subsidize them for low income visitors even though the taxpayers already own the building and subsidize the place each year in management and maintenance. I guess the millions we throw at them already isn’t enough.

While it was nice to see an impressive permanent collection without worrying about people coughing the covid babies on me, I was unimpressed by the lackluster presentation. Not only were most of the exhibits not labeled, the salon style of the exhibition had many great works up in the rafters where you could not view them. Maybe if I dropped another $15 dollars I could get a scissor lift to assist my viewing.

This is what happens when you turn an arts center over to a money grubbing Executive Director and a Cartoonist Department head. Enjoy wiping your butts with my $15 dollars.

For the past couple of weeks, I have watched as the parks department has mowed literally a 1/4″ of grass on the football fields at Sanford Sports Complex weekly. Not only is this a waste of labor and fuel, 1) the fields are not being used and 2) with all the concerns about tax revenue, really?

Don’t get me started about taxpayers funding youth sports to begin with, I have often thought that should be paid for by parents, but this is a total waste of tax revenue. While we can go around and talk about ‘cuts’ If I were the mayor, I would be slashing crap like this.

I guess I can’t call Jensen a Count anymore, he is now known as RE-Count Jensen, LOL!

UPDATE: According to commenter VSG, the cross has been taken down. I figured once it was pointed out it would not take long, considering the consternation the SFSB had over having to put up a ‘In God we Trust’ sign in the lunchroom. Which is kind of ironic, because it is Federal taxpayers that are feeding almost 50% of our kids in the school district, not God. Maybe a more appropriate sign would be ‘Teach a man to fish . . .’

A South DaCola foot soldier sent me this picture tonight. Was this Christian cross hanging in the window of a private Christian business owner or a private Christian school?

Nope.

It was hanging in the window of the IPC Center for the Sioux Falls School District.

Now I’m not a Grinch. This employee who hung this up should not be fired, or even reprimanded for having religious symbolism in the window of a facility supported by taxpayers. But it should be removed immediately and they should have to write a 10 page essay about the importance of the Establishment Clause. Then if the employee refuses, they can certainly grab a box and pack up the rest of their belongings because they should be out of a job. Then they can apply to work at one of our fine Liturgical schools in town.

I have often argued that your faith is between you and the God of your choice (or not). Separation of Church and State is important. Why? Because it protects the faithful from the government telling them how to worship. Why is it so hard for these people to understand this? It PROTECTS YOU! Now, if on your own time you want to convert people with your idols and symbolism, go for it. The School District has NO right to tell you what to do or who to worship on your own time. But when you are on the taxpayer’s dime, you must refrain from your cutesy cross crafts.

I can hear the comments already about how I am anti-Christian, anti-God, etc. I am not. I believe in God. What I don’t believe in is using my tax dollars to promote God. God promotes itself everyday when the sun rises in the morning, when the rain comes, when the birds sing us beautiful songs. I don’t need to see a cross in a publicly funded facility to convince me God exists and is all powerful. 

I’m sure Jesus has a few words to say about this? Oh he does;

1 John 5:21;

Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

After an incident over the weekend where SFPOs were caught cussing out suspects, the Chief of Police claims there is nothing to see, move along. As I have been saying for years, further proof we need body cams, but as he said last week, no policy changes. Shocker. They also need some diversity training and paid physical fitness time.

Sales taxes are in the crapper, but no surprise. As about 15% of the workforce in Sioux Falls lost their jobs and nobody was spending any money – we saw this coming. I just hope the budget hearings that start tomorrow prepare for this.

Speaking of money, the city could get up to $41 million in Covid money but Mayor Multi-task doesn’t think we need it. The covid crisis is far from over, and as you noticed, the cases in SD remain on an even keel and are NOT going down. If this continues into the fall and winter, we may need some of that money to combat the crisis further. Nothing wrong with planning ahead, wait, this administration doesn’t know what that means. Let’s just keep the libraries and pools closed, that’s the ticket!The Public Transit board met today but no one really knows what is on the agenda because it wasn’t posted on the agenda page. Of course this is a violation of open meetings laws not having the agenda posted (except in this mysterious zoom document). But they have been violating those rules for a couple of years now, why do anything differently?