I was going to do 3 separate posts, but hey, each story has a moral to it, and the contributors are from my favorite daily local newspaper (of course, there really isn’t another choice).
Let’s first start with Patron‘s lovely piece on the city paying out claims. While I enjoyed the information, two conflicting comments by Michelle Erpenbach struck me a bit;
“I come back to the idea that I feel the city has some responsibility for taking care of the people who live here,” she said.
I would agree with Michelle, 100%. But I find it odd that she feels a responsibility to take care of people (after all we all pay sales taxes) then turns around and expects us to pay more for it;
Erpenbach expects to vote for the (sewer rate) increase.
“To me, that’s part of living in a community,” she said. “In order to have the services that we want, at the level we want, it’s going to cost us money.”
While I can already hear the arguments, I will say this, if you want something to work and to be ‘nice’ it does cost extra, BUT, as I have said 100 x before, our sewer system was neglected while we squandered tax dollars on other stuff. It’s time to cut the apron strings from all the non-profits and extra-playland bullshit we are funding in Sioux Falls and target that money at the sewer system and streets instead jacking up our rates every freaking time we turn around.
Enough talk about turds.
Ellis had an interesting story about our mayor, and how he likes to edit his videos (as DaCola reported earlier this week). This quote by Huether was classic smilin’ Mike:
“There are folks that will do whatever they can to create partisanship, to stimulate divide versus progress and the people. And this is probably just another example,” he said.
Hey Mike? Wanna know what creates negativity, division, distrust in government and partisanship?
LIARS!
And now to Matt. I have to be honest with you, I don’t even know his job title at the AL but I always enjoy his columns. This week he points out the hypocrisy of the supporters of HB 1217;
Even though it almost certainly will be challenged in court as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, Gov. Dennis Daugaard says he probably will sign the bill the South Dakota Legislature has passed requiring a woman to wait 72 hours and to receive counseling before she can have an abortion in the state.
If the legislation lands in court, Daugaard and others have suggested there are private donors willing to put up the money to defend it.
Which seems to beg the question: Why stop there?
If there are people in this nation so bent on ending abortion they’ll pay us to do their bidding, what other civil liberties could we attack to make some dough?
You’ll have to read the whole thing, good stuff.