South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

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Republicans know how to win elections, just not how to govern

l3wis 3Comments

As we watch the sh!t storm in DC that is a full throated cluster we don’t need to look to the East, it is occurring right in our town.

I asked the question not long ago, ‘What has TenHaken finished as mayor?’

I will give you the short answer; Nothing

Even his mentorship initiative, that I fully supported, was handed off to the Helpline center with a line item for taxpayers.

He knows how to win elections, raise money and even get others elected, he just doesn’t have a clue of how to lead.

Paul cut his teeth in the political world helping Republicans get elected in his former life, he is a partisan hack, and that is all he knows.

I wouldn’t even classify him as a Republican when I compare him to the likes of Staggers, Stehly and Brekke.

He is an authoritarian businessman that only cares about the green.

The most hilarious part is running a city isn’t really that difficult unless you have a natural disaster to deal with or a mass shooting, but that is also part of the job.

Your duties as councilor or mayor;

• Make government documents and information as open as possible (state law allows local government to determine what information they want to release, I will give you a clue, ALL OF IT. The only thing that should be hidden from the public is personnel files and pending litigation.)

• Collect taxes (but do it in a fiscally responsible manner. I was astonished at the informational meeting today when the city council made this recommendation for legislative priorities. Fiscally responsible bodies actually find ways to cut taxes.)

• Provide infrastructure and services with the taxes provided (I’m a pretty bare bones guy when it comes to how taxes are spent. I think we should only collect enough fees and taxes to have a balanced budget (minimal borrowing) and spend it only on NEEDED public services and infrastructure and let the entertainment and welfare developers fend for themselves. Just look at the millions we have thrown at parking ramps, etc., while we have virtually NO inventory of first time homes or more affordable new housing. If you think the housing crisis is bad now, wait until a year from now when our population growth will bottom out because there is NO place to live in Sioux Falls.)

Jerry Seinfeld said it best, “You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to keep the reservation.”

You wanted the fricking job, now do it!

SF School Board Member SF School District Sioux Falls supreme Court

SCOTUS thinks ‘entities’ make decisions all by themselves

l3wis 14Comments

“Captain, we have encountered the Sioux Falls School District.”

The Title IX case concerning gymnastics has been interesting to watch. While I don’t have a dog in the fight, I do think that gymnastics is a legitimate high school sport, AND they had a very good case against the Sioux Falls School District. In fact, I was surprised the District didn’t concede before the hearing.

But what I found interesting in the judge’s injunction is how he dropped the athletic director and superintendent from the suit citing SCOTUS has concluded that individuals are normally dropped from these suits and only the ‘entity’ itself can be sued.

This happened recently in the Bunker House case against the city. The defendant claimed he was racially discriminated against and the city (the mayor) requested that these claims of racial bias be removed from the case. I don’t know what was said, or even if the mayor said it, but if he did, that racial bias is ON him and should not have been dropped from the case UNLESS the mayor can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he never said or did anything to discriminate.

While our local Federal Judge has no control over SCOTUS rulings and essentially wants to follow their case law I find it interesting that SCOTUS thinks individuals can’t be held liable for making bad decisions on behalf of the entity. I would have sued not only the Super and Athletic Director, but the entire school board and any staff associated with this decision.

People are NOT naive, we know since the Pam Homan days that decisions come directly from the administration and they hog house the board into going along with their poor planning.

Sorry SCOTUS but entities like school districts don’t make decisions on their own, PEOPLE do, and when those people make decisions that clearly violate Federal statutes they deserve to be sued in their official capacities AND should be permanently removed from their positions (fired).

I’m not sure how you can keep someone around who clearly advised the school board to make this decision and violate Federal law. If these are the kind of decisions she is making, do we want her running the District?

I also take issue with the fact the school district felt it necessary to spend district money fighting this. They could have probably funded the program for the next 3 years for what it cost in lawyering. I certainly am NO expert on Title IX law, but this seemed like a pretty good case that the district was going to lose. Who is giving them legal advice? Oh that’s right, no one, just the ‘ENTITY’.

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Arnie Zings

l3wis 2Comments

I love that Conan told Arnie that he is funny, because he is. Conan tells the story about how Arnie was on SNL and wrote a ton of his own jokes. To be honest with you, I wish he would run for president.

I have to say that I am consistently baffled by the GOP’s loyalty to Trump. The guy has been breaking laws and lying since the 1970’s. DOCUMENTED COURT CASES!

While I lean left on social issues, as an indy, I support good old fashioned fiscal constraint. I think ALL governments should have a balanced budget, I also think that taxes should be lower, and they could be, if we just spent tax dollars on infrastructure and services. In fact we could cut the Pentagon budget by 50% and close half of our bases in the world, and we would STILL be the most powerful military in the world.

While I have never voted for a Republican president, I do support traditional conservative values of fiscal restraint. Trump had ONE accomplishment as president, he gave one of the largest tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans in the history of our country. Is that really conservative values OR Trump values? If I was a Republican, I would be embarrassed about the fellatio the party is giving to Mr. Trump. You have lost your way and your minds.

Charter Revision Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Councilor Merkouris wants you to know he loves you and the CRC keeps beating a dead, dead, dead, horse

l3wis 3Comments

While I rant and rave about transparency and city government, sometimes a councilor lifts a finger. Merkouris sponsored and got passed this city ordinance last night (FF: 44:00, Item #10);

The proposal requires council approval of contract that are in excess of $100,000 per vendor, for each calendar year. Those contracts involving the expenditure of funds less than $100,000 will be noticed on the agenda. The proposal requires that all contract subject to council approval be delivered to the City Clerk and placed on the consent agenda. Contracts/agreements that are subject to the state’s executive session laws will no require council approval. Existing ordinances that duplicate SDCL are removed.

While I have stated before this a good ‘first step’ in opening up the contracts to the public, they need to make more bold changes moving forward.

But it was Rich’s testimony before the approval vote that stuck with me. Rich told a story about how his wife tells him he needs to tell his daughters he loves them, and he replies, that he provides for them, so they should know he loves them, and his wife tells him that you still have to say it. Rich uses this example to point out that the public doesn’t always know what is going on unless you articulate it (TELL THEM). He nails it! We can assume our government is open because ‘good people’ sit on the dais, but unless you actually tell us what is going on, we can assume anything.

Short-timer and world class vitamin salesman who decided not to run for a 2nd term suggested that the $100K was too low and it should be $500k because the council is too busy to be signing all these checks. Heck, Alex, why not make it $20 million so we can build more overpriced bridges for whiney babies who check their ‘decorum’ at the mayor’s office front door.

The CounTcilor’s term on the council has been truly befuddling. He truly proved a dead person could beat Stehly, because his actions and policy legislation has been truly DEAD.

CHARTER REVISION COMMISSION MEMBER ZYLSTRA WON’T CONCEDE UNTIL THE MAYOR GETS A RAISE

CRC member, Carl Zylstra proposed today at the CRC meeting that a wage commission be formed to study wage increases for councilors and the mayor and gives them the power to increase their salary (but not during their term). While I would say a study would be nice, not in this case. The inflationary increases have worked well and keep politics out of the pay increase, in fact, I think the mayor got over a $10K raise last year just from inflationary increases. It works and the voters agreed almost 2 years ago, they are fine with what the council is getting paid and the current setup. Leave it alone.

While I might agree that the councilors do deserve more pay, they should have to punch into a clock instead and get paid hourly, because some of these folks would make $100K a year while some of them would be lucky to collect a paycheck (they should be handing out oxygen tanks instead).

“SELBERG! You are late again! And Paul, tuck in your shirt! And where are your slip free shoes?! All Stars?! This isn’t a 1976 meet and greet with the Globetrotters!”

The argument is that in order to attract good candidates the pay has to be higher. Really? All the insider deals isn’t enough for them? Also, if the pay is so bad, maybe we should have a cap on how much a council candidate can spend on a campaign?* Maybe it should be 50% of their annual pay? I don’t think anyone spending $100K for a job that pays $20K a year is to concerned about the pay, after all, this is public service 🙁

*I have often thought the city council should implement some campaign finance rules. I’m sorry, but spending 5X the amount on a campaign this job pays in a year tells me you are more concerned about winning and less about what it pays.

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Mayor is threatening arrest and banishment from Carnegie if comments are ‘irrelevant’

l3wis 10Comments

I knew after the short-timer councilor last week kept interrupting a public inputer while he was sitting in his jammies on the couch phoning it in, and my corresponding public input, the mayor decided to send the council the below letter reminding them he doesn’t understand prior restraint.

As you can see, he is saying he can remove or arrest people based on them being noisy, irrelevant or making personal attacks.

He is correct, do NOT make personal attacks on elected officials. Stick to the business at hand, and if they did something wrong within their council duties, you DO have the right to dissent them at a meeting, if they did something wrong in their personal lives, that is NOT within the business and decorum of the chambers.

Don’t make personal or violent threats. If you do, you will probably be arrested for making personal threats towards those on the dais or any city employee or member of the public present. The 1st Amendment doesn’t cover violent threats, and it shouldn’t.

As for slander, this one is a slippery. If what an individual is saying is blatantly false and obviously false, yes, you can ask someone to stop saying it. But I go back to prior restraint. How do you know what the individual was saying was slander?

How do you know if someone is irrelevant?

What is considered noisy and rude? Could grunting and groaning into a hot mic be considered noisy, disruptive and rude? Sure. So does that mean the city council can call to have the mayor arrested for not following decorum? Well according to his own letter, you could, since he is consistently rude and dismissive of most public inputers.

It is a 1st Amendment violation to cut people off simply because their voice is too loud or they are saying something uncomfortable about a city employee or elected official. State law and city ordinance does NOT supercede the 1st Amendment and as long as you are talking about city business or politics in general you cannot be stopped or arrested (a frequent inputer who constantly praises the mayor comes at least twice a month to tell us about another right-winger book he is reading. How is this relevant?)

You can be as rude and loud as you want to be.

If you have noticed, the mayor hasn’t arrested or banned anyone yet, I will tell you why, because he knows if that person decides to sue based on constitutional rights he would lose, big time. He reminds me of those Shih Tzu dogs, all bark and no bite, and at the end of the day all you have is a lot of dog hair to clean up.

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