Yesterday I watched the informational and city council meetings that took place on July 14th. What I saw was NOT DEMOCRACY at work, in fact I will go so far to say that our municipal government is turning into quite a joke, and the apathetic public doesn’t help matters much either.
First in the informational meeting newly elected council chair Biceps Bob Litz ran the meeting like he was still in 4-H and when Dr. Staggers questioned Bob why the agenda had been changed without him knowing to not include a questioning session with City planner Mike I do what I please Cooper, Bob claims that himself, the mayor and Pat Costello told Cooper he did not have to come because they met with him privately in the mayor’s office. This is where I take issue. There has been rumors swirling around that the councilors have been having individual and small group meetings with the mayor, in private. They can do this because under our f’cked up state open meetings laws it is allowable as long as the whole group is not there. Though they are not technically breaking the law, I take issue with this because 1) it is unethical as Hell 2) Democracy only works when it is transparent. Guess who has never been invited to one of these pow-wows BTW? You guessed it; Dr. No Kermit Staggers. Something fishy is going on and I can guarantee the Dumbnamic Duo of Dave and De are trying to strong arm the councilors into voting for certain CIP projects. If this continues I’m going to start a petition drive to have Mayor Munson and Councilor Knudson recalled and I am not bluffing. Sioux Falls is a municipality, not a kingdom and it’s time the King and Queen get dethroned.
On a second note, I watched the council meeting where supposedly a citizen got out of hand when he called Biceps Bob a dictator. The citizen never raised his voice he simply was stating an opinion that he felt Bob’s chairmanship position has gone to his head a bit. The only person that got clearly mad was King Dave, he pounded the gavel and called in the poooowlice. About this time I thought we were going to see another episode of Don’t taze me Bro. I think Munson was PO’d before this incident occurred and the reference to Hitler probably put him over the top. Another citizen before that basically put Munson on notice as she ignored his 5 minute rule for public testimony. Good. The 1st Amendment and free speech does not include 5 minute rules. We have a right to public testimony, Period. Like I have said before, if I ever get threatened with arrest or told my time is up in a city council meeting, they will be facing an ACLU lawsuit. If the citizens don’t speak out against this awry administration, who will?
CIPee-Pee
I watched about the first 50 minutes of the CIP budget hearing yesterday. I found it interesting and so did Dr. Staggers that they split up the revenue charts (basically the needs and wants) to make it look like the city’s banking account was in great shape (insert laughter here). Another example of City Hall’s identity crisis and the financial director, Gene Montgomery Burns Rowenhorst backdoor approach to making things appear just peachy.
Rounds is a bonehead
Rounds is blaming one person for the licensing snafu, and of course it is not himself; Pam Nelson. It seems Rounds thinks that Pam just needs to do her job (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) and everything will be fine. Lil’ Mikey Bush is once again in a state of denial, because his fine FTE’s in Pierre don’t make mistakes, you know, and Pam just needs to learn how to use the system – that does not work. I guarantee something will come out of this, Pam will either quit or be fired over it. That’s what Republican leaders are good at, don’t like how they do things, there’s the door, we are never wrong, especially Mike White Strips Rounds. I’ve said the best way to fix the problem is to let Marion Rounds himself stand at one of those windows for about 10 hours. I’m sure a guy that can fly an airplane can figure out the bugs in a software program. C’mon Mike, what are you a afraid of, actually meeting the people you are supposed to serve?
l3wis 
