I did find her sudden retirement strange. Sally Felix had only worked for the city for 8 years, and it seemed to me, she still had a lot she wanted to accomplish. I don’t really have an opinion about Sally, good or bad, but I will say that our libraries are very nice and well attended to. Not sure why arrogant A-Hole Huether fired her, but Holsen lets us in one some background info (you also have to take into account that Jen’s commentary is a bit slanted, she fed at the same trough as Felix did – but it is a good read). This part is interesting;
Mayor Huether questioned the need for libraries in general, noting that research can be done using Google and consumers can buy e-readers.  He equated library services as only reaching out to the homeless and the poor. As ill-conceived as that may be, let’s go down that road a minute and ponder the logic of supporting the purchase of a security system to lock the homeless up but questioning the worth of a system that can teach them to read.
LMAO! I sent an email two weeks ago to a councilor about this very topic. I said,
“So who are we protecting homeless alcoholics from with a $100,000 security system?”
Their friends? Or themselves? Councilor Jamison was the only councilor to vote against the expenditure (Entenman was not present).
While I don’t know the ins and outs of the whole Felix situation, I will give props to Jen for bringing this to light, looks like Detroit has some competition. Will the local media pick this up?
I thought getting to the library link has always been the reason most people even use siouxfalls.org.
He fired a librarian???? They work long hours, put up with crazy people (like the mayor) and the pay is probably not that great.
Lots of us go to the library and we are not homeless and we have The Google at home. The library downtown is great, what sucks is the parking meters. Since when do libraries have parking meters?
Strikes me if the city can’t afford the librarian the city can’t afford an events center.
Wow! I cannot believe that I just read this. I use the libraries weekly for academic research as well as using “Google” and an E-reader. Not everything is available online especially issues and back issues of journals, small town newspapers, and old almanacs. More importantly is the access to peer-reviewed academic journals (jstor) which is only available to libraries that subscribe to it since they are not available for individuals and other programs are simply unaffordable. A library is a significant asset that defines a city.
Brom- reminds me of an article I wrote about the history of the statue of david in SF for one of the early issues of ETC. I had to dig in the archives and microfiche at the library to get all the articles about when he was gifted to SF. I wish I could find a copy of the article, one of my better pieces. Hudson? Do you save that stuff?
No, one of my regrets is not keeping all these rags I was involved with.
So let me get this straight. Libraries and snow gates are bad. Monkey crappers and McArenas are good. This is one fucked up town.
Take a few minutes to find how many librarians the city of Sioux Falls employs and their level of pay. Then let the discussion begin.
The library pays pretty damned good.
Being a marketing guy, the Mayor doesn’t recognize the value of any sort of research, beyond consumer (momentary, pop-culture) trends and/or finance. History? Culture? Art? Irrelevant to the marketing profession.
What this mayor big spender doesn’t realize is that there are a lot of people in the are that can’t afford to buy e-readers. I am assuming he is talking about things like the kindle, nook, etc. Besides the expense of that there is a fee to download the material that you want to read. When I have looked at this stuff on line I have seen reading material for these things that are in the $10-15.00 price range. It depends on what you want to read. To me holding one of these things wouldn’t be the same as holding a book in my hands. I get the homebound delivery service from the library. They have volunteers that deliver a bag of books to people on a monthly basis. There are also people that read books and materials that aren’t available for reading online. Some things are pure research, but if you want to read fiction I bet you don’t find it byusing google.
I got a kick out of this ANON’s comment on Jen’s site (it is so blatantly obvious it is Huether). Two things give him away, he says, “Business acumen” and “Folks”
“Let me offer another perspective, I’m assuming all of you are open minded and open to other opinions.
First, none of us ever truly knows what goes on behind the scenes. How do we know the Mayor and Sally didn’t have a serious disagreement on a major issue? How do we know if Sally made a statement or series of statements that made it obvious to the Mayor that they were just on different pages in terms of the future of the library system and management styles? Whether you like it or not, the Mayor is the CEO of city government and he was elected overwhelmingly just recently.
Personally, and I know many other regular people feel this way as well, I like the fact this Mayor is making changes – most of all, making difficult personnel decisions and changing the culture and the rampant entitlement attitude at City Hall where no one ever gets fired for performance, ever, and annual raises and loaded benefits packages are expected regardless of performance or the current economy. Jennifer touts “career professionals” as opposed to bringing in new blood with business acumen because she was a career bureaucrat herself, so ofcourse she’s going to defend that crowd. And Cheryl, ask yourself this, if there is a lack of internal talent to promote at City Hall, do you blame the current Mayor who has been there all of 8 months or do you blame the person who has been responsible the past 20+ years for talent recruitment and hiring (previous HR Director)? As for those panning the national search approach to finding new department heads, you should know that Sally Felix, the current topic of this blog and widely applauded here, was chosen by way of national search – you can’t have it both ways folks. This lack of internal talent to promote didn’t just happen, the last Director’s I can think of that were promoted internally were Doug Barthel (great choice) and Rick Larsen (he was gone in less than a year). Mark Cotter and Don Kearney were other examples hired from outside City Hall….by the way, on Jennifer and the previous Mayor’s watch. Nothing new going on here folks, and Jennifer of all people knows it full well.
Wake up folks, the rapid recent erosion of unions and downright revolt taking place right now in other states against unions and that mentality is because the vast majority of the public wants government as usual to change – especially the no one ever, ever gets fired or demoted no matter what, and we just always promote other bureaucrats from within approach. It’s ridiculous and all of you are in a very slim minority bubble, trust me. I applaud this Mayor for shaking things up and making a statement that being aggressive and being efficient in govt are not four letter words. It should be clear by now that this Mayor is not a “wait for consensus before I do anything” leader like the previous Mayor. He’s a real leader who’s going to do what he believes is right for the taxpayers and for his agenda which people overwhelmingly supported just 10 months ago. No more massive overspending on pet projects, no more task force’s that lead to nowhere, and no more six figure PR types pretending to be Chief of Staff. You can attack or question the approach and that’s your right, but honestly it’s pretty hard to argue with any of his personnel decisions to date when you look at each one individually. Give it time folks, judge him after 4 years, not 4 months.”
folk you.
#10, I read and absorbed it. Somewhat agreed except mayor as CEO. In this culture, a CEO makes millions but the company consistently loses money. If he’s CEO, we’re investors who should force him out. The library is an unofficial warming house. It’s valuable for citizens who can’t afford technology. It should always be a city archive. Huether seeks to control public information and open records. It’s beginning to look a lot like Libya.
Do you moron’s realize that you post stuff that is purely based on rumors and secondhand conversations? This notion that our Mayor doesn’t believe in books and only believes in ebooks, etc. is just ridiculous if you stop and think about and yet all of these posts and responses assume it’s true because someone on another blog who clearly has an ax to grind made a single statement regadrding this that she allegedly heard second hand.
Here is my message for most of you – get off the couch and the computer and become functional, contributing citizens. Quit focusing all of your energy on consipiracy theories, heresay, second/third/fourth hand rumors, etc. All of you clearly have too much down time, get a job or a second job. Scott, pick up extra shifts and give up the excuses for where you are in life, take action to change your professional and financial status. I really feel sorry for all of you.
Stop the presses. First of all l3wis, is the comment about the mayor questioning the needs for libraries an actual quote, or is that just someone taking liberties with what he really said?
I don’t know his viewpoints on the issue, but I would have a hard time believing anyone with moderate intelligence or above would doubt the need and benefit to a strong library system.
Second, it is incredibly unfair of you to claim that quote was from Huether himself when you have zero ability to prove it. Frankly it sounds like something I would have written and I agree with much if not most of it. However, I sincerely doubt Huether takes the time to quote on random blogs under a anonymous moniker – especially one which is probably read by no more than a few dozen people.
If the guy was going to go around and defend himself, I’d suspect you would see him here rather than at Holsen’s blog… because you are a lot harder on him than she is, and this blog is much more widely read.
Also… I don’t see a marketing guy writing a post and saying “4” instead of spelling it out as “four”. That is grammar 101 right there, and someone with proper business acumen wouldn’t make such a novice mistake. Plus, Heuther would probably know to break up such a long post into more paragraphs. lol
Probably not Huether, but suspiciously close.
TFB – Funny how you chew ass for us making assumptions about Huether while in the same comment you make assumptions about me and my readers. While I can’t speak for them, I will tell you this.
First off, Holsen is personal friends with Sally Felix, they both were directors with the city and probably worked very closely together, I think that is pretty blatantly obvious. I find it a little hard to believe that Holsen is making shit up, or Felix, after all they still both need to collect their pensions.
As for the assumptions about me, don’t be silly. I have worked over 50-60 hours a week ever since I have lived in SF, 19 years, to tell you the truth I work less now and make more money waiting tables then I did in my last job, and I have my own business on the side. Stop assuming all liberals are lazy asses, the ones I know are actually very successful and hardworking and they actually work for their money instead of fucking over people on Credit Card scams.
Next time you want to make accusations, I suggest you whip out your balls and your name tag, otherwise GFY.