South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

2012

Daugaard Mike Huether

Interesting polling on Mike Huether for Governor

l3wis 27Comments

A South DaCola foot soldier told me they got a poll call the other day (couldn’t remember the polling company). But the caller asked various questions about state issues then asked,

“Who would you vote for in the governor’s race if it was Daugaard VS. Huether?”

Not sure who paid for this poll, but I do think Huether is exploring the governor’s race. Like I have said in the past, he can transfer any of his mayoral campaign funds into a governor race fund.

Drop me a line if any of you have more info on this.

Sioux Falls snow removal Snowgates

Snowgates: The dis-information campaign continues. Nothing like kicking a horse while it is down.

l3wis 2Comments

From GP:

I hate to beat a done deal but for every piece of bad PR out of the Mayor’s office we need to beat it back.  This is SubPrime Mike and staff’s latest effort to make us look petty and foolish.   Commenter ‘Matt70′ is part of it.

Notice how it is now “hundreds’ and not ‘thousands’ of…  Since when does 8,000 signers become hundreds of signers?

Soukup crying crocodile tears because they are being pushed to do what the citizens want… Cartoon of Soukup face on crying croc would be nice….

How much information does the city and contractors need to find to convince the public to vote against what the citizens asked for, a public vote?  The city rents / leases about ‘32′ plows for 6 months, so make the spec for blades to work with the city owned gates.  Tell the contractors and city drivers to learn how to work together. The contractors need to learn how to plow the streets the way the city requires it to be done.  After listening to the testimony I now understand why so many areas of town are plowed so badly.  One of the biggest complaints heard during the petition drive was the horrible way the contractors have been plowing or not plowing the neighborhoods.  There is a great deal of anger boiling under the surface of this town because of the preferential nature of certain neighborhoods when it comes to street work.

Let see, according to Soukup, the contractors are in charge?  Let’s add the ill-conceived Spellerberg pool issue in to this mess.  Pam Homan’s poor decision making processes endorsed by the school board we have been experiencing.   I thought this was a citizen owned government but I guess we are seeing a tip of the spear pointing at the citizen’s ass once again…  As the spear gets poked enough times during the next 17 months we may see the anger realized when SubPrime,  councilors, school board and all are before the voters May 2014.  Ahh, a perfect storm on the horizon.

From Detroit:

It seems the VP of the AGC’s get’s to decide if snowgates are doable;

“Our contractors would like to see the true cost of what snow gate is before they weigh in and decide whether it is something they’d like to see happen,” Toby Crow, Executive Vice President of Associated General Contractors of South Dakota, said.

Toby, hate to break you the news, but it is NOT up to you and your members, it is up to the voters whether or not we are going to have snowgates. This constant talk from city directors, contractors and councilors is getting down right annoying. Shut your pie holes already.

Dean Karsky Jim Entenman Michelle Erpenbach Rex Rolfing SF City Council Sioux Falls snow removal Snowgates Sue Aguliar

The Cowardly 5; Erpenbach, Rolfing, Entenman, Aguilar, Karsky

l3wis 25Comments

Trust me, I knew how this was going to go down tonight. I knew it would probably fail.

But the process was not honored. Five councilors didn’t honor their oath to US Constitution to uphold democratic ideals, holding timely elections per request of citizen petition signers. It’s shameful, lustful, greedy, and COWARDLY. These are your five councilors that are COWARDS!

The worst part is that Council Coward Chair Erpenbach decided to implement one of her made up, pro-censorship, anti-1st amendment rules and limiting public testimony to 20 minutes (Think SF School Board meetings). That is why I was not allowed to speak, though I raised my hand.

If I would have had the opportunity (But apparently this city now is a dictatorship ran by a coward called Michelle Erpenbach) I would essentially said this;

I have been watching city government longer then any of you have even served up here. You are very predictable, but I am hoping tonight I would not have to predict the normal, self-interest, cowardly action to protect the ruling class from the working class of this city. I think it is incredibly pathetic that I even have to come here and beg my elected officials to uphold their constitutional duties they swore on in an oath. This is a slam dunk, your constituents have followed the letter of the law gathering these signatures and turning them in. Your job is easy. Vote YES to secure a timely election, any other action would be shameful, cowardly and unconstitutional.

Sioux Falls snow removal Snowgates

Snowgate lies and misconceptions

l3wis 7Comments
As constituents and snowgate petition gatherer volunteers have been calling councilors and comparing notes with other volunteers they are finding that some of the councilors have been spreading misinformation, and in some cases, flat out lying. Everything from your taxes being raised on food to snowgates don’t work because some city in Minnesota stopped using them.
During the mayor’s last listening and learning session a retired veteran asked the mayor if using snowgates would come out of the street repair fund. The mayor didn’t answer the question, because he probably knew the answer; NO. Snow removal comes out of the operations, 1st penny tax that CANNOT be raised without citizen or legislative approval. The mayor did mention they could up your front assessment property tax, the city council has the power to do so, BUT, it all comes down to budgeting NOT new or more taxes. Remember when the mayor sold the city on the Events Center? Remember his cry? No new taxes or increase in taxes. We simply make the bond payment out of the 2nd penny, just like the 1st penny, it cannot be raised, so it is matter of budgeting to make the EC bond payment, it is the same way with snowgates.
Don’t let this mayor or any councilor scare you into tax increases for snowgates. At the most snowgates could cost us an additional $3-5 million a year, take this out of a budget of over $100 million, and you will never even notice a change in services except that you no longer have to scoop the ice berm out of the end of your driveway.
I use the analogy of the wasted time it takes a resident to scoop out their driveway;
65,000 households x 45 minutes = 48,750 man hours x 8 major snowfalls = 390,000 man hours x $25 per hour = $9,750,000 in lost wages (double that if you pay a contractor to scoop out your driveway).
Snowgates will actually save homeowners money that they will spend elsewhere in our community therefore having a REAL economic impact. I think $19.5 million more dollars injected into the SF economy is worth the $3 dollar cost, I’m no investment banker, but that looks like a pretty good investment to me.
We have been working diligently to clarify these lies (especially the one about Edina, MN eliminating their snowgates), and during public testimony tomorrow night, many of these misconceptions will be squashed like gnats.
Pam Homan SF School District Sioux Falls

What is Duper Super Pam Homan’s job? Why do we have a school board? (Guest Poster)

l3wis 3Comments

“You mean I should actually read these contracts before signing them?”

Sunday’s PayWall Leader gave us some surprise news.  Our esteemed local school board ceded more control to an appointed official and she in turn sold more of the sole of this city.  She has decided to give up on more of our most needy by selling them out to a for-profit ‘education’ corporation.

Is our education system so broken in Sioux Falls we have to give up on it and pay a for-profit education corporation to operate our schools?  Remember a few days ago when we were ‘privileged’ to hear the Homan dog and pony show about the wonderful job she is doing? Reread SouthDacola’s Duper Super Homan feature speaker at Democratic Forum today.  Well here we go again.  Let’s see how Homan has been doing: telling the substitute teachers they aren’t worth being paid a competitive rate, experienced teachers retiring early,  consolidating schools without full public discussion as to costs and benefits, nepotism and more.  Somehow our weak, led by the nose school board is afraid of her or have been bought into her schemes to dismantle our once great public school system.

We’ve had a few discussions with others since the news was dropped on us.  The crux of these convos is why the Joe Foss school deal is wrong not on one but many levels.  It seems to be such a shock it escapes the full thought process of Sioux Falls.  We will only touch on a few ways this is a real bad idea for the student, the school district and Sioux Falls.  It may sum up to numbers.  In an effort to make the testing / grade averages increase for the school district, Homan has decided to remove a problem area from their ‘numbers’ by farming the students off to a private corporation.  Instead of putting the efforts necessary to help the students with the right kind of support, Homan has decide to abandon the students and families of special needs children.  This will likely cost the school district more money in the end and society as a whole.

Fake Liberals and holier than thou Conservatives have been locked in a battle to control the educations of our youth.  The holier than thou are looking for ways the take our children to their version of the Lord.  The fake Liberals (neo-liberals) are trying to protect their children from being contaminated by the unwashed-lesser of society.  Amy Goodman’s recent article tells the tale of the Chicago school teachers strike and what was at stake:

Pauline Lipman is a professor of education and policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She explained, “Chicago was the birthplace of this neoliberal corporate reform agenda of high-stakes testing, paying teachers based on test scores, disinvesting in neighborhood schools and then closing them and turning them over to charter schools.”

Now with the preceding quote in hand think about what is happening in Sioux Falls right now.  At the heart of what is going on in our schools matches the Chicago situation.  To paraphrase Goodman: locally, from the grass roots, do we operate with teacher and parent control, or top-down, by a school board controlled by Homan.  We are supposed to be so impressed by Homan’s dog and pony shows we forget the purpose of the public school system is to educate everyone equally, to add to the value of the community and create thinking citizens.

Homan is contracting out the school board and her responsibilities to a for-profit company who is only concerned with how much they can skim off the top, middle and bottom to make a buck.  Students are not human beings in their equation, they are products to be churned out as cheaply as possible.  Why do we have Homan making these decisions and no thinking people on the school board to question her.  Is No one able to veto anything she throws out?  No questions?  Really?  Really no one is able to raise any ethics or long-term education issues in this?  Really?  Wow, is Sioux Falls so backwards we cannot question authority?  Really?  What happened to students first philosophy of John Harris?

We ask the questions again, “What is her job?” “Why do we have a school board?”

I also received this information recently from the SE Homeless Coalition:

There are 3600  households on the waiting list for a subsidy at Sioux Falls housing, and the  wait is at least four years.  This is the entire preschool life of a  child.  Pam Homan said there were 500 unserved preschoolers, I am guessing  this might be a low figure.

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