November 2009

A little Kermit Bashing

l3wis November 9, 2009 14Comments

While I disagree with Joel Rosenthal 9 times out of 10, I do like to read what he has to say, sometimes he makes some good points, but he couldn’t be more wrong about Councilor Staggers;

Particularly since Kermit is a publicity hound, especially when it is earned media (read free) and the Councilman from the Central District has been getting a lot of earned media lately. Most all of it has to do with his bickering with other City Council Members.

BOLOGNA! Bickering is what I do Joel. Kermit has been bringing up relevant points that some of our other councilors cannot comprehend. Government is about debate and dissent, not sure when this concept went by the wayside? Comments like “I should be charged tuition for Kermit’s lectures” isn’t exactly the best way to discuss relevant government issues. A ‘Bicker’ only starts when the ignorant say something that is not relevant to the topic.

Staggers is often a lone voice. His tilting at windmills is well known. There are more 7 (the Council majority sans Staggers) to 1 (Staggers) votes in the last several years than the proverbial than Carter has liver pills and the multitude of budget amendments he offers year after year that die from lack of any other Council Member seconding his amendment (even for discussion purposes).

This statement alone tells us that you (Joel) are completely out of touch with Sioux Falls’ constituents. While Staggers is the minority on the city council, he supports the majority of his working class constituents. This paragraph alone is so loaded with FOX News crap, I don’t now whether to get a shovel or a payloader.

Admittedly I have a love – hate relationship with him. I worked with him on several of his campaigns when he was a successful candidate for the State Senate (he served four terms).

Trust me Joel, I think he probably feels the same about you.

His personality is most often warm and engaging and even when you do not agree with him you can’t help but like him.

Amazingly, we agree on something. I’m not going to go into a long story about how great of a guy Kermit is, but I will say this, he was the first people I ever interacted with in city government, and after that interaction I have been a fan ever since. Like him or not, he is a nice person and he gets stuff done for the citizens of SF.

He can though become a grouchy at times when he is unhappy or things don’t go his way.

Grouchy? More like frustration with the beauracratic circus called Sioux Falls city hall.

Lately Kermit has acted in way that suggests that he does not have the temperament for executive office and certainly not Mayor. In recent weeks he has had public spats and feuding with Council Members Bob Litz, Pat Costello, and Greg Jamison.

FYI, Joel, those spats were not started by Kermit, they were started by the councilors mentioned. When Kermit states the facts and someone is ‘hurt’ by those facts that doesn’t mean Kermit started the spat. The truth hurts, so call a freaking whaaaaambulance already. Why are politicians considered ‘controversial’ when they are being honest, but when they follow the status quo and rubberstamp a poorly planned and dishonest agenda they are considered ‘nice’ or ‘good’.

But the bigger story is Kermit lacked the ability to resolve these personal situations in a manner incumbent of the Mayor’s Office.

Number one, it is no secret you support Vernon Brown as mayor, so this was an obvious personal attack to benefit your candidate (that you strangely don’t mention in this post) and secondly, Kermit has incredible ‘resolve’. He has asked these three councilors repeatedly to resolve these disagreements in private with no avail, and is usually blindsided by their insults. Recently councilor Jamison asked the council chair to remove Staggers as the chair of the Land Use committee in a public meeting, without any pre-warning to either Kermit, the chair or the council. Let’s talk about resolve.

Kermit may be a formidable candidate. He is a good campaigner and he has been working very hard on this race for a long time. Certainly voters will want a fiscal conservative (there are several in the race besides Staggers) but I don’t think he will get much traction.

You are right on the first half of the paragraph, but sooooo wrong on the second half. Even if I didn’t support Kermit for mayor, I still think it will be a horse race in the runoff between him and Huether. mark my words. Just because politico’s like yourself know who Bill Peterson is, doesn’t mean the rest of the public know or care. I can also sum up with why I came to the conclusion that these two will be in the runoff. Staggers and Huether have put themselves out there. Nobody knows Peterson, not to mention once they find out he wrote the flawed city charter that his past millionaire boss, Kirby, pushed him into, he is toast. Brown already failed once at running for mayor, and since he broke his promise not to finish out his council term it will reflect badly on him. Costello has too many conflicts of interest and once that gets out, it will doom his run.

Voters foremost want a leader (particularly for executive office) who despite differences of opinion instills confidence, finds common ground, and is capable of earning respect.

And they would get that and more with Dr. Staggers. It is pretty obvious he takes stands for citizens, and that is what we need more then anything right now.