UPDATED: Argus Leader’s biased and misleading endorsements

UPDATED: I just got word that two citizen activists emailed the Publisher of the Argus Leader, Bill Albrecht today about the poorly constructed endorsements and Patrick Lalley’s involvement. The main disappointment stems from asking voters to vote against snowgates. This is a obvious bias by Lalley. Snowgates have widespread support, heck even the mayor supports them. They will probably pass by 60-70%. So why would the Argus dump on them? The ed board claims that they compiled these endorsements through interviews with people involved with the petition drives. Guess how many times they asked Theresa Stehly (The snow gate petition chair) on the ‘100 Eyes’ show? ZERO. Lalley has even denied that he asked her to be on it, but he did, about a month ago Lalley said to David Montgomery and Ellis on the show that he has asked Stehly to be on the show and she wouldn’t do it. Ellis quipped that they should invite me on to talk about them, and Lalley muttered something. When Stehly called Lalley about this ‘supposed’ invitation, he denied he ever said that. Well I heard it, Ellis and Montgomery also heard it, so he was lying, he did ‘claim’ he invited her on. But it gets better. Stehly called Lalley last week(?) to ask if she could be on the show, and he told her NO because snowgates have no opposition. Then today’s endorsements come out. It seems snowgates do have opposition, Patrick Lalley and the Argus Leader. Stehly spoke with Bill today and told him that she asked Lalley if she could come on the show, and his denying her the request. In an email to Bill, Lalley denies that conversation ever occured.

The fourth estate is supposed to be trusted to cover these issues, and inter-office LYING between management is not a good thing, especially with all the other problems occurring with the election. With this much hub-bub just over the snow gate measure, how can we trust ANY of the Argus endorsements?

You will notice that the AL’s endorsements are the exact opposite of mine, in fact they go against many of the opinions of the candidates running for office. No surprise there.

As I have said in the past to, I don’t think our only local daily paper should be doing endorsements. The TV stations don’t do it, not even the local radio programs. It is advertising disguised as journalism. The job of the media is to inform the voters on the pros and cons of each issue, and that is it.

What is even more troubling about these endorsements are the obvious misconceptions and bias in them.

Snowgates;

Speed also plays into the notion of efficiency. Plows equipped with snowgates cannot maintain the same speed through the core city streets, in particular. That leads to a narrowing of the roadway after repeated snowfalls.

Sioux Falls receives, on average, 40 inches of snow each year. That’s not nearly as much as other places.

Just read these two paragraphs. We can’t have snowgates because if we get ‘a lot’ of snow the streets will narrow, then in the second paragraph they say we don’t get much snow. I LOL when I read this. Patrick Lalley, managing editor at the AL has admitted several times that he hires someone to clean out his driveway (and wash his clothes). Well, Pat, we all don’t have that luxury. Vote Yes for snowgates.

Spellerberg;

Ultimately, the concept of the indoor aquatic facility will have to pass on its own merits based on need and cost. That’s a debate for another day.

Then why bring it into the debate? While I support an outdoor pool at Spellerberg (would love to see a free admission natural filtration pool) I guess I don’t really see a NO vote turning into an indoor facility. This is something the media and the city have cooked up from the beginning, and now to admit that we are not debating it is a little disengenous. But they are right. If the outdoor pool fails, that doesn’t mean an indoor facility will be built there. They could just simply fill it in and make it a green space park. It is obvious most people in this community support an indoor facility built for room for expansion and a private/public partnership, that can’t happen at Spellerberg.

Shape places;

To that end, we recommend a “Yes” vote on Referred Law 3 with the caveat that the City Council should revisit the law to consider improvements to the public input process.

First off, the AL ed board doesn’t know their asses from a hole in the ground when it comes to Shape Places, so even ‘attempting’ to do an endorsement is idiotic. Secondly, I wasn’t aware a ‘caveat’ existed in the ballot language. Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t. Nothing is forcing the city directors, the mayor or the city council into ‘revisiting’ the ordinance if it passes. If it fails, it will FORCE them to tweak it and re-pass it. And there is nothing preventing them from doing that. When Planning Director Mike Cooper was recently asked about the ordinance failing, he pretty much admitted they would just tweak Shape Places and send it back to the council. Vote NO on Shape Places to force the city into repairing it’s public input weaknesses.

Walmart Rezoning:

However, we don’t get to pick the retailer.

Uh, kind of sounds like we do. In fact the word ‘Walmart’ is used several times in the city attorney’s ballot explanation. If the rezoning is approved, Walmart will build there. If it is not approved, this zoning of this property will have to be reconsidered and scaled down so a 185,000 square foot super center can’t be there. Besides the obvious problems associated with traffic and being too close to single family homes (that were built before the rezoning). There is the millions in subsidies taxpayers will have to kick out in infrastructure and social costs of a Walmart. And the tax revenue Walmart will bring in? That’s laughable, they are only canibalizing their other stores and robbing local retailers. It is a disgrace that not only our local newspaper (that makes it’s revenue from advertising, not subscriptions) but our local Chamber would endorse a retailer that has been known to hurt local business. Have they gone stark raving mad? Vote NO on the rezoning. Let’s at least hope Sioux Falls has a little integrity for once.