March 2013

City Odds & Ends

SIRE & Online meetings

Not sure if others have noticed, but ‘Some’ issues still exist even after all of my foot stomping and the city claiming they ‘identified’ the problem and were fixing it. Some meetings still are disappearing for a few days. Some get posted, then will disappear the next day, or some don’t appear for a few days. Another issue I have found is that there is a long silent moment at the beginning of the meeting, you sometimes have to FF about 4-10 minutes before the meeting begins. While I was smart enough to figure this out, I wonder if others watching the meetings online just get frustrated and figure the video is not working. To tell you the truth I am tired of complaining to the clerk’s office and the IT department. I still don’t understand why this is so difficult to manage, it makes you wonder how other departments are managed.

Public Input discussion at the city council working session

I was able to attend the meeting yesterday for the first hour, but I wasn’t able to stay for the public input portion. I got the feeling that ‘certain’ city councilors just ‘don’t get it’. Councilors Erpenbach and Entenman seem to be in a state of denial about city ordinance, even though the city attorney, at least twice during the meeting told them what the ordinance was. 5 minutes per person. Erpenbach seemed to think she OR the mayor can make up the rules as they go along, and she ‘claimed’ Munson used to do it. Which is not entirely true. Mayor Munson who split the opponents and propopents, and would usually let proponents go first. But I do not ever remember when limiting beyond the 5 minute ordinance. He would stop and gavel disruptive or controversial testimony, did it to me twice. Erpenbach DOES NOT seem to fully comprehend what her rights are. It is clear to me that, after the city attorney read the ordinance to her twice in the meeting, that she clearly broke city ordinance when it came to public input. She owes us an apology.

Precinct Maps

I was told yesterday that Bev Chase from the school district and Bob Litz from the county decided the school election precincts. Councilor Entenman was in attendance to the meeting just as a representative for the city and made NO decisions on the matter.

South DaCola Fest; Monday, March 25th.

I am planning it for 5:30 at the Touch of Europe, Downtown Sioux Falls, 12th & Phillips at 5:30 PM. FREE PARKING after 5 PM downtown. We are normally closed that night, so no food, but I will have a cash bar of beer and wine and two-fers on Amber Bock taps and house wine.

Anybody is welcome to come and talk about politics, even though the conversation normally goes astray really fast.

Who is thinking about running for SF School Board?

I have at least one supporter

Well I know of least one challenger to Alberty and Westra.

After a long conversation and consultation with my wife and children (actually just my dog, Sodapop) I picked up nominating petitions just a short while ago. I decided to AT least get the petitions signed and turned in. This DOES NOT mean I am running for sure. If NO other candidates decide to challenge Alberty and Westra, at least they will have one to debate. The city council may be able to bail on the Spring election, but the school district will not.

Please, People, help a brother out and pickup the petitions!

MY PLATFORM (if I choose to walk the plank)

Indoor Public Pool in conjunction with the city.

Substitute teacher pay.

Property taxes in reference to people without children in the district.

No RUBBERSTAMPING of Homan’s policies.

How ALEC member/state legislator Corey Brown w/ Denny DoGood suckered in the ‘smart’ ones over a $30 million dollar windfall for the state (H/T – GP)

Unclaimed property in rural Georgia? Not anymore.

A short time back we asked the question “SD State Treasurer Sattgast must have asked SOS Gant to design a website”?  Go back and read it.  We now ask the question again in light of the November, 2012 election results where the Governor lost his pet projects to the people’s revolt and are now getting SB 235.  For those who do not follow the actions of our esteemed elective officials playing government in Pierre for their enjoyment (and potential profits?) we bring it up again.

SB 235 started out life as an empty piece of legislation. A quirk our legislature has, is the ability to change empty bills to do whatever it so chooses.  This year’s session has created a monster rollup bill to hide a great deal of ugliness covered by pretty gift wrapping with the passage of SB 235.  Everything we the voters of South Dakota did not like about the Governor’s special projects fund and its untraceable / unregulated gifts, are now going to be rolled into this law.  There are some nice things the ALEC funded pushers of this law have allowed to happen to gain supporters but digging deeper into their motives shows the depths of the subterfuge.  A massive amount of new money is falling into the hands of South Dakota politicians to divide up.  To divide up this massive amount of new money, they have sucked in a bunch of naïve Democrats and tea partiers to block future organized efforts to rein it in.  How can you have a petition effort to stop something you are part of? Shame on you Bernie and Jason…

How does this apply to Sattgast, Gant and the unclaimed property fund?  Well, according to reports, big USA banks are rechartering their national banking operations to operate under the rules and laws of the State of South Dakota.  Why is this important? A former SD State Treasurer fought to guarantee the owners of misplaced or unclaimed property the ability to get it returned to them.  SD Treasurer Butler fought Wild Bill Janklow and his legislators all the way to the Supreme Court on our behalf before losing.  Butler became a hated man in Pierre and Citibank, probably still is.  Janklow brought Citibank to South Dakota and he continued to help them, by losing track of the owners of “property” so it could be split without audit.  South Dakota gained a bit and Citibank gained a bunch.   We had to believe the banks without any audit.  Right…

Now we fast forward a few decades to this year’s session.  The Mitchell Daily Republic has an excellent discussion of SB 235.

This surge was fueled when several major banking corporations, such as Citi and Wells Fargo, consolidated their charters in South Dakota for tax reasons. That means money left behind in accounts throughout the nation will become unclaimed property here.

The part they do not tell you is how the state gets to keep all these funds.  Remember the state’s unclaimed property website?  It has been made impossible to use.  We had wondered why it was designed so badly. Now we know.  People looking for their property will never find it.  Now add millions of unclaimed accounts or property to this fund having originated in other states or countries.  If you did not have a chance before, guess what opportunity you have now?  Now think of the millions of account holders from around the world who will never see their investments.

So, to steal money from unsuspecting depositors, insurance policies, safety deposit box holders and more, South Dakota has designed a website to make sure the scam works.