Of the documents released by USCIS, the most surprising relate to the TransCanada project. Bollen made the initial application in May 2011 to include TransCanada as a qualifying EB-5 project.
By that time, Gov. Dennis Daugaard had been in office five months. Benda, who had not been retained by Daugaard as a Cabinet secretary, had gone to work for Bollen and SDRC.
Tony Venhuizen, Daugaard’s director of policy and communications, said state officials didn’t learn until more than two years later — last summer — that Bollen had applied with the USCIS to supply EB-5 financing to Trans-Canada. By then, state and federal officials were investigating the state’s program.
“He told them he wanted to get into the pipeline business,” Venhuizen said, saying the TransCanada information was a surprise.
But one thing the state officials said they didn’t learn until questioned last week by the Argus Leader was that Bollen also was trying to expand SDRC’s service area into Montana and Nebraska.
“That was not a detail that he mentioned,” Venhuizen said.
I love how the current administration and the Rounds administration act like Benda and Bollen were just working alone, because, you know, like the governor doesn’t have time to monitor millions of dollars in economic development money. I could just hear Denny and Marion having the conversation as Marion was leaving office, “Yeah, Dennis, really not sure what Benda and the boys are doing up in the ED office, but you can trust them, they are really good at managing themselves, heck, they never ask for my assistance ever, sometimes it will be months before I even talk to them.” Dennis responds, “Cool, it is kind of how I handled fostering native children out to white foster families. Once they left Children’s Home Society, and you cut us a check, I was pretty much hands off, guess you can’t say that about Mr. Mette . . .”