Top Story of 2010 in SD? Mayor Huether’s nomination.

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“Cap’tan, I can’t spend much more money, I hope this will be enough to destroy the Staggers’ campaign”

Sure, there were a few other things.

Smoking Ban (we saw this coming a mile away in the polls).

Herseth getting beat. Big whoop. I predicted early on that Noem’s ravishing good looks would win the Republican nomination, and she had a good chance of beating Steffy, and when the money poured in, I knew it was over for Steffy.

Food for votes. A political football created by the pack of wolves called the SD GOP who can’t stand to lose.

Huether beating Staggers was a surprise to me. Even though I predicted that Kermit and Mike would be in the runoff. I thought that Kermit would squeak it out. Mike’s hiring of one of the best campaign strategists, performing a smear campaign in the underground, employing get out the vote experts and spending 3x more then Kermit sealed the deal for Mike an amazing come out of nowhere victory.

I think the biggest surprise was that Sioux Falls voters trusted a mastermind marketing strategist of one of the most predatory credit card companies in the nation to run their city. We will see how this turns out. Maybe it will be the top story of 2011.

We are competing with Phoenix and Chicago? (Phoenix and Chicago are now laughing)

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The Mayor’s Golden Boy

Okay, sometimes I must resist posting when Mayor Good Folks says ridiculous things, like when he referred to testing snowgates as ‘Creating a Monster’ (Inside Stormland TV), but this latest quote while defending growth and development city expenditures is a bit over the top;

Sioux Falls’ main competitors no longer are Fargo and Sioux City, Iowa, but metro areas such as Phoenix and Chicago, Huether said.

Okay, I’ll play along on industry and jobs. But you also have to factor in world class music clubs and museums. And while Chicago shares our horrible weather extremes, I would much rather be in Phoenix right now.

Councilor Greg Jamison said he supports the efforts of organizations such as the Sioux Falls Development Foundation and the Chamber, but he’s not sure about the city’s new efforts.

“I’m just concerned that we might be creating another layer that’s not necessary. (The organizations) have been doing a pretty great job throughout the years,” he said.

This is about CONTROL for Mike, it’s not about whether these other orgs have been doing a good job or not, and for the most part they have. Sioux Falls is definately not stagnant. Could growth be better? Sure. But it takes more then a mayor with a big mouth and big hair to change that. It takes progressive thinking, something the business community is short on, unless they can make a buck.

Unlike the organizations, the city can rezone a property or refund sales tax as an incentive, Smith said. But he wants more incentives on the table in order to compete with states and cities offering such things as cash.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. While I am all for easing zoning and property tax discount incentives, handing over taxpayers money to a private entity in the form of cold hard cash is a slippery slope, and I hope Megan ‘Patron’ Luther was misquoting you. If not, we need to be very weary of these intentions.

BOSOM BUDDIES

What is a strange twist on this article is the political relationship between Huether and Smith. I hope you can handle all the back slapping and boot licking;

“I just think that he (Smith) was unbelievably qualified. He’s very passionate, and he’s such an informed guy,” Huether said.

Apparently not qualified enough to finish out his councilor term, but qualified enough to pick the pockets of taxpayers in a Huether administration;

Smith, who has known Huether and his wife causally for a decade, contributed to Huether’s campaign and volunteered “bad advice from time to time and he was smart not to listen,” Smith joked.

Like when you ran to Stormland TV news like a little school boy about Staggers’ fake junket trips? That wasn’t bad advice, it was just plain ruthless.