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.
I want to thank the members of the recount board: Jon Hansen-Del Rapids, Rodney Steele-Brookings and my attorney Randy Seiler-Fort Pierre. These men crossed party lines on June 24th and worked collaboratively to examine approximately 29,000 ballots. They all made transparency and citizen accountability the top priority of the day. I feel confident that every allowable vote was counted.
I also want to thank City Council Clerk Tom Grecko , County Auditor Bob Litz , City Attorney Stacy Koistra and all election support staff for running an efficient recount day. In the end, I lost by 97 votes.
As I leave this council position, I want the citizens to know that I served them with a loving heart. I always tried protect their best interests and to help them whenever I could.
I wish Alex Jensen the best. I pray that he will serve the people with the responsiveness and caring respect they deserve.
God bless you all,
Theresa Stehly
I want to applaud the review board, they did an excellent job of reviewing this fairly. I also want to give props to Auditor Litz and Clerk Greco for taking care of this professionally and in a timely manner. I’m glad to see there was no real issues.
As I have said before, I didn’t want my friend Theresa running for re-election. It was taking a toll on her that I didn’t like. It changed her in ways that were positive, but in more ways made her more bitter, angry and suspicious of government.
She worked hard. I probably spent more hours on the phone talking to her about policy then she did in meetings. It was a wrestling match that I did not enjoy, because solving those problems are hard. Very Hard!
She HATED secrecy and corruption, and it showed everytime she turned on her microphone at public meetings.
We will never see another Theresa Stehly in city government again. I don’t say this lightly. It makes me very sad and discouraged. We have allowed a bunch of toddlers take over the city, and soon we will be paying the price. You will see.
But don’t think Theresa is going to ride off in the sunset. It’s not her nature. When a door closes on her, another one opens. I think we will see that.
I want to congratulate Jensen, he won fair and square (besides the money).
Kids, it’s always about ‘The money’. If you don’t have it, you don’t win.
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.
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;
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 zoomdocument). But they have been violating those rules for a couple of years now, why do anything differently?
So isn’t it interesting that the re-count manual was changed on June 3rd? The good news is that the manual that existed on the day of the election is what stands, not the changed one. I have not reviewed either manual, so I do not know the changes, but by law, the one that existed on June 2nd is that one that applies to the city election and recount. Curious what changes were made and the curious timing of those changes.
In a recent national medical study funded by a local government agency they found some startling results; public employees who work as librarians, lifeguards, city directors and managers have very poor immune systems. So poor, the common cold could knock they out for months, even have life-threatening results.
Dr. Bowlshyt who assisted with the study said, “We kept wondering why everyone else in the private sector was going back to work, and managing Covid infections just fine except this group of the workforce. Heck even firefighters, public works employees and police were having low cases.”
For a long time here in our own city and across the country there seemed to be a reluctance to open public libraries, swimming pools and local government offices, now we know why.
“Some have argued that this group may be arrogant, or paranoid for not going back to work like everyone else, like they are some special class of people. But that may not be the case,” continued Dr. Bowlshyt, “While we did find a high level of anxiety and paranoia with this group, we chalked it up to being public employees. But what we found in our medical study is that not only do some of them lack a backbone (said in a sarcastic tone) but they virtually have NO immune system either.”
This may explain why our city and many other cities refuse to send these people back to work. They may have had this medical data all along.
Economist Darrell Dewnuthin also weighed in on the economic side of paying these people while they ‘Joe Biden’ it in their basements, “Well, in reality, does this sector of people really work anyway? Have we noticed any change to the functionality of our cities while this sector of people have been absent? None to report. Cities have actually been saving money because they don’t have these facilities open.”
The only difference is that the taxpayers are still paying the wages and benefits associated with this group of people while they essentially ‘work’ from home. But it’s kind of hard to check out a book, swim in a pool or get a building permit from places that are closed. So what really have they been working on the past several months?
Local citizen advocate Pam Tanga thinks she knows the answer to that question, “What they have been doing before Covid hit. NOT MUCH!”
UPDATE: After a brief public input session the BOE met for approximately 4 hours in executive session with the accused being represented by what seemed to be two attorneys who were in the room before the session started. As I understand it the person who filed the complaint and the accused attorneys left the meeting two hours into it and they met for another two hours then recessed. In other words the BOE did not emerge for a public vote which means they are still in discussions about the validity of the complaint. It seems odd to me that 5 people can’t make a simple decision in a matter of 4 hours. Of course we still don’t know who Mr. Mouse is, and we don’t even know what the complaint is. Will we ever know? The BOE of course will have to reschedule a later time to finish deliberations. Who knows when that will be?
Another interesting tidbit is that one of the attorneys representing the accused seems to be the same person representing the Jensen camp in the re-count next week. Of course, this is not surprising since there probably isn’t a lot of attorneys out there willing to wade into the waters of election recounts and ethics complaints.
First, let’s pretend for a minute that Mickey Mouse works for the city, and let’s just say, Mr. Mouse took a trip paid for by a partisan group. Then let’s say that this same Mr. Mouse already had a violation thrown out on a technicality, which cost taxpayers in outside counsel $3,750. Then let’s say the city council met last night to approve another expenditure for Mr. Mouse from the SAME law firm that could not exceed $7,500. But for some reason none of us seem to know who Mr. Mouse is? Could we assume that the first Mr. Mouse is the same Mr. Mouse that is being looked at a 2nd time around? Or could it be his friend Donald Duck? Or maybe it is from another department? Maybe Mr. Pooh. Or Waldo? Or the Grinch? Oh, it’s probably Rat Fink!
Here is my take. If you are a city official, and an ethics complaint is filed against you, and you think your are innocent, why hide behind confidentiality? As Porky Pig would say, ‘That’s all Folks!’
Fine arts activity attendance will operate on a four-tiered system similar to athletics to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Sioux Falls schools.
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — Students and staff at Rapid City Area Schools will be required to wear masks when classes resume next month. The school board voted Monday night in favor of the requirement. Superintendent Lori Simon says teachers will have to wear a mask when six feet of physical distance isn’t possible.
Good Morning! We have a quiet morning of weather East River with very nice conditions to start the day. Scattered thunderstorms have developed West River. We expect some of these thunderstorms to move east toward Pierre and Aberdeen during the day. We could use the rain the Aberdeen area. You can see the areas in […]
The concept of force majeure, “Act of God” in some constructs, is well established in law. The basic idea is that unexpected events that seriously disrupt human activities — hurricanes, earthquakes, epidemics, floods, you name it — can be grounds…
