Mayor Huether requested a meeting with me a few days before the Events Center vote. Well we found time today to get together for about 30 minutes. We didn’t touch on many things I wanted to talk about but we did discuss some important topics. Here is a brief overview;
• Before the meeting he showed me his office (I have never been in the Mayor’s office) and told me why he set the room up the way he did. I joked it was his version of Feng shui, which surprisingly he knew nothing about, well, I’m sure after a little googling he is rearranging his furniture right now 🙂
• We discussed the crumbling politics of Washington and the games they play. Mike actually dug up a quote from Kristi Noem in the SD Municipal League’s newsletter and how she accuses the senate of playing games.
• We discussed the reason this meeting was called, his frustration with anonymous blogs (what he really means is ANON comments on blogs) I told him I like the FACEBOOK option of commenting and I agree with him that I am not real keen on anon comments. But I also reassured him that I know most of my commenters and do not allow garbage that may be libelous to filter thru. He did ask a weird question, he wanted to know who one of my anon commenters were. Which I found a bit strange, because they are pretty obvious. I did tell him, and he wasn’t surprised, like I said, pretty obvious. It kind of made me chuckle to myself, because he didn’t want to know who Angry Guy or Pathloss was. Sorry guys. Let’s just put it to you this way, it is unimportant.
• He did brag a bit about the EC passing which got us into a discussion about the entertainment tax, local control (which is important to the mayor, and me) and Lewis & Clark. He assured me we are locked and loaded and getting the water, but agrees with me that the Feds have no interest in funding it anymore.
• Mike did answer one question for me (partially). Shawn Tornow has yet to have his civil service hearing. He did not tell me why there has been a delay, but he did reassure me that Tornow has not been receiving compensation or benefits since his dismissal. I joked that Tornow was the king of dragging things out. Which he did not have a response or even a smirk.
I wanted to talk about ethics, Debra Owen’s firing, snowgates, code enforcement, and Rex Rolfing but we never got to that. He did touch a bit on Debra though, and how he has become gun shy of interfering with council business. It came up after we discussed moving the Monday Council meeting to Tuesday nights and I mentioned to him that they are considering day meetings. He told me, he didn’t concentrate on their business anymore after the Debra Owen ‘fiasco’.
As I said in our last podcast, I like Mike and enjoy talking to him, he has a pulse on our city. Do we agree on things? Not at all, but he will talk to you about it, and told me before I left that if I ever have any questions to call. Oh, I will.