Entries Tagged 'Staggers' ↓

Got Wood?

Don had no problem interviewing De about all things quality of life but when it came to interviewing Kermit, Don had this to say;

I asked Staggers for an interview, but he refused to talk to me on camera about why he’s running again.

Yes, this is true, he refused to talk to YOU! But Kermit did agree to speak with ANY OTHER reporter at KELO. See, Don likes to throw Kermit under the bus any and everytime he interviews him, including the time Darrin Smith fed Don a fake junket story about Kermit (even though the money was already allocated and Kermit was the only councilor that volunteered to go on the trip).

Don, maybe it’s not Kermit, maybe it is you? No wait, it is YOU!

And you wonder why Stormland-TV has to steal stories from the Argus and blogs?

UPDATE: As I have heard from others over the past couple of weeks, Munson is considering a run for the legislature and NOT the city council.

A South DaCola foot soldier tipped me off tonight that Munson has been hinting at ‘getting back into politics’. (I think one of the TV stations broke the news at 10 PM) I always assumed he would run for the legislature again, but it seems he is considering challenging Staggers. This would be an interesting matchup, for several reasons. For one, they are completely different kinds of Republicans. Munson is a big government, big spender Republican and not real keen on transparency. In fact he had to drop out of his 2nd term mayoral race at one point because of a middle of the night deal with Phillips to the Falls, which has been a complete failure. Staggers on the other hand is a fiscal conservative who is a strong believer of open and transparent government. I hope if Munson runs, Staggers takes off the kid gloves and shows Munson for who he was as a mayor, a backdoor salesman who blew millions of taxpayer dollars on unneeded quality of life projects while failing to upgrade our sewer system and roads. Munson may think his second term legacy is all that and a bag of chips, but he really wasn’t that good of a mayor, and I don’t see him being a much better city councilor. I’m just saying.

I also think it is odd that Munson would be stepping backwards from being mayor to being a city councilor, he wasn’t one previously, and I think he would struggle with how powerless the job can be sometimes.

I guess we will know more soon enough. February 24, is the filing deadline.

I’m back, and I promise not to wear the beige suit ever again.

I will break this down quite casually.

MOST LIKELY RUNNING

Kermit Staggers for At Large seat left vacant by Vern ‘The Velvet Hammer’ Brown

Kenny Anderson Jr., the incumbent. Not sure who would run against him?

Mark Millage vs. appointed goat roaster Dean Karsky & Hutch.

UP IN THE AIR

Greg Jamison running for a second term.

RUMORS AND GOSSIP

I have nothing. I have not heard one peep about anybody else considering running for office. And why would I? We got our events center, what more could we need?

As you may already know, the SF Ethics Board has been reprimanded (only as a board, not individually) for wrongfully accusing councilor Staggers of ethics violations.

Here is a list of the actual board members;

Mike McKnight (lawyer), Howard Paulson (lawyer), Bill O’Connor, Mari Robbennolt, and Bob Swanhorst.  Please note that two members of the board are lawyers by profession. This information is available on Siouxfalls.org.

R. Shawn Tornow was the lawyer from the City Attorney’s Office who advised the Ethics Board when the Board was dealing with his case.

The case began when two union leaders from the Fraternal Order of Police filed a ethics complaint against him with the Board of Ethics on April 8, 2010, five days before the first mayoral election on April 13th. The Board eventually determined that there was no merit to the accusations. They were truly frivolous claims.

This should have been the end of the matter, but it wasn’t because now the Ethics Board on their own and with the assistance of Tornow came up with two of their own ethics claims against him which he first learned about at the Ethics Board meeting of May 4th.  Kermit had his lawyer with him and they were both surprised how baseless these allegations were.

The first allegation was that Kermit was soliciting city employees in a letter that he sent to city employees. The sentence that they supposedly got him on read as follows:  “As a citizen, any suggestions that you may want to communicate to me can be done in the absolute strictest confidence by contacting me at my home phone, 332.0357.”  In the letter he never asked for money or for them to even vote for him.  The purpose of the letter was to simply inform city employees about his views on city government.

The second allegation contended that by serving as a Republican committeeman while a member of the City Council was a violation of a provision against holding another publicly elected office.

In a nine page-brief to the Board of Ethics Kermit’s lawyer demolished these allegations by saying that the act of soliciting deals with asking for money which he never did and that the holding of another elected office by the Board’s interpretation would have prevented him from serving as an elder in his church because he was publicly elected to that office. Obviously, the prohibition on holding another elected office deals with holding another publicly elected government office.

Despite Kermit’s lawyer’s brief, two days before he ceased being a city council member he received a confidential letter in the mail saying that he had been privately reprimanded by the Board of Ethics because of soliciting city employees and holding another publicly elected office. Kermit was instructed to keep this letter confidential. The Board’s issuance of a private letter of reprimand was an abuse of power because the Board of Ethics does not have this power; this power belongs to the City Council.

Eventually, he was successful in demonstrating that the Board of Ethics had violated the state’s open meetings laws, and for that the Board received a letter of reprimand.  Now he is trying to get the Board of Ethics to retract their illegal letter of reprimand against him.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_aVuS7cOIQ[/youtube]

KSFY Screenshot

This of course after the City Attorney advised the same in his testimony today in front of the commission. The city of course blamed Shawn Tornow for bad counsel to the Board and claimed the Board acted in good faith from his counsel. Of course it’s easy to blame a former city employee who is ‘no longer employed by the city’.

Staggers wanted individual reprimands of each board member AND the dates of the private meetings. He got neither request.

UPDATE:

ARGUS LEADER

KELO & KELO Part II

KSFY

Here is a detailed PDF of Kermit’s testimony and city correspondence;

staggersethics

Photo; Derek Cecil

“There are a number of things I want you to be aware of in my presentation. I want you to be aware that I do not smoke, and I do not have the desire to smoke. I do not drink alcoholic beverages, and I do not desire to drink alcoholic beverages. I’ve never smoked marijuana, and I have no desire to smoke marijuana. I’ve never taken illegal drugs, and I have no desire to take illegal drugs. The reason I am at this rally for Initiative 13 is for very personal reasons. I’m not here for abstract reasons. I’m not here for theoretical reasons. I’m here for very personal reasons, and that very personal reason is I have somebody who is very close to me who suffers from constant pain. This has been going on for six years. Each day, this person is in pain. Each hour, this person is in pain. Each minute, this person is in pain. And, of course, each second of every day, this person is in pain. Now, for those of you who have other people here you’re aware of that’s in pain, you probably realize that pain can really wear a person down. Really wear a person down. In fact, this person is probably (sic) disabled. Now, I should also mention too that this person takes prescription drugs and that one of the drugs is a narcotic. A prescribed, legal drug. And also many other drugs to try and recover from the pain. So, the question has to arise; If this person is already taking heavy duty, heavy duty, heavy duty prescription drugs, what is wrong with this person being allowed to try marijuana to see if it can provide some relief? Now, as a matter of fact today I was talking to an opponent of Initiative 13 and I told this individual this very personal story of mine and this individual responded kind of interestingly. This person said “Well, if I was in the shoes of that person and suffering all this pain, you know what I would do? I’d just go ahead and smoke marijuana illegally anyway.” Well, this person I know that is suffering in pain is not about to break the law. No way. But this person hopes the law can be changed with Initiative 13. And so, in conclusion, I would like to thank all of you for being here today to possibly make this happen. Thank you, again.” – Dr. Kermit Staggers

I was reading through the budget amendments tonight (item 14) that will be proposed on Monday night at the city council meeting. Yawn. Besides funding more monkey crappers and shifting money around, there really isn’t any thing of importance.

It seems are councilors think amendments are for SPENDING MORE MONEY instead of saving taxpayer money.

Also I see councilor Harley-Davidson Monopoly wants to increase the room tax even though it would not have a purpose, accept to throw more money at a failing Convention Center.

Next week, the Sioux Falls City Council will consider a proposal that would add a $2 fee on every hotel room in the city.

“In my opinion, it’s the best thing to do,” city councilman Jim Entenmen said.  “Dollars are hard to come by and we’ve got to continue to promote Sioux Falls and it’s getting tougher because there’s more competition for that business.”

Right now, the city spends about a million dollars a year to help fund the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

My suggestion? Make people buying Harley’s pay the same sales tax rate as people buying food. Maybe that would raise some money? Looks like Jim is becoming a regular ole patsy for the mayor.

Image: KELO-TV screenshot

Is Vernon defending Kermit over the bogus ethics investigation because he feels Kermit was wronged? Or is afraid it may be his hide next? Makes you wonder if the ethics committee was trying to dig up dirt on Vernon to?

Staggers is concerned that the investigation went beyond the scope of the original complaint. Something that also concerns city councilman Vernon Brown.

“Probably, the most disturbing part for us is the complaint was filed but the investigation went beyond what the complaint was,” Brown said.

And let’s hear the bullshit response . . .

Mike McKnight, the chair of the Board of Ethics, says local laws give them the ability to go where the evidence takes them, and if any changes were made to that part of the law, it would limit their work.

LMAO! You mean the same ‘unconstitutional’ laws that tell people when they are in violation of city code? A city can’t just make up laws that are in violation of the US Constitution and the State Constitution and then use those bogus laws to assert power. Kermit nails it with this comment;

“In making it public then they’re going to be held accountable. When you have a situation where things are done in secret, accountability goes by the wayside,” Staggers said.

This comes as no surprise, Huether spent 2.4x more then Staggers. As I have said all along, this election was bought and paid for;

In total, Huether spent more than $240,000 for his campaign. Pat Costello followed with $166,000. Kermit Staggers spending more than $100,000, according to campaign finance disclosure statements.

While these numbers are not surprising, this one is;

Huether, a newcomer to the political arena, had more than $97,000 in in-kind contributions, according to city of Sioux Falls campaign finance disclosure statements. It was a hefty amount compared with Costello’s $15,000 and Staggers’ $1,750.

It shows the only real person financially supporting Mike was Mike. Of course he puts his best spin on it;

Huether, who spent $128,000 of his own money on his campaign, said contributing a fair amount of his own money was done in the “spirit of stewardship.”

That’s the biggest line of bullshit I have heard from him in a long time. Allowing you to be our mayor is hardly ‘stewardship’. You hate losing, so you spent as much as possible so that would not happen. It just goes to show how money has destroyed politics.

And this number is a little fuzzy also;

In total, Huether spent more than $37,000 for consulting during his campaign.

That’s interesting, because when I add up all the ‘consulting fees’ it comes close to $74,000. But who knows. Things are often listed twice on the financial reports. Heck, he could have paid Hildebrand a cool $100,000 and we would never know.

Looks like city attorney Tornow ate too much of the US Constitution. I never knew the fifth amendment could be so filling (screenshot from KELO-TV video).

Here’s an update on the ethics complaint against Staggers.

Tornow also says he thinks the city’s ordinance is in conflict with state law, which is why Staggers says he wants changes to the way the board of ethics operates.

“I wish your best in the consideration of the proposed ordinance which would make it clearer or more explicit in allowing an accused person of an ethics complaint to allow the complaint to be made public. This ordinance that needs to be passed,” Staggers said.

Well isn’t it your freaking job to follow state law? If you know it is in violation, as a lawyer wouldn’t you follow state law instead of protecting the city? You should put a gigantic sticker on the City Attorney’s door at city hall, “The Fifth Amendment is not allowed here.”

Ethicsboardminutes. This is a PDF.

ethicscomplaint. This is a PDF.

response-staggers This is a PDF.

Tornow needs to get a fire estinguisher for his pants;

Owen asked Tornow whether he felt Staggers had adequate notice of what the board was investigating. Tornow replied: “It isn’t how I feel like, it’s how I read the ordinance.” And he said it was “absolutely untrue” that Staggers didn’t receive proper notice, to which Staggers replied, “What are you talking about, Shawn?”

This guy tells so many lies, he begins to believe them. It infuriates me that he still is collecting a paycheck from my taxes. He should be fired, disbarred and ran out of town for his violations against the US Constitution.

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