June 2014

Does the rest of the state hate us that much?

I could care less if we get one single state tournament in Sioux Falls. I don’t have kids, and I don’t like sports. I think the only reason sports should exist in public school is for exercise and recreation. Public schools focus should be EDUCATION! But look at our city and how much money we blow on recreation, so it should be no surprise we really want tournaments in Sioux Falls;

“Boy, for the sheer numbers, we seem to be excluded so, I hate that.  We’re the big gorilla at the other end of the state,” Todd Thoelke said.

Sioux Falls, despite accounting for 20 percent of the state’s students, hasn’t had a member voted in since the mid 1990s. Thoelke, a Sioux Falls School Board member, was hoping to end the drought. However, he wasn’t elected to the board.

“I think we need to have our voice heard and to continually be shunned, it’s a little frustrating. But you know, the state voted and the tally was in and I was, once again, not elected,” Thoelke said.

Why has Sioux Falls had a 14 year drought on the Athletic Board? Protectionism is probably one reason, the smaller cities want to protect their territories. Could it also be because their is a hate and jealously towards Sioux Falls? I have often said, if I didn’t live in Sioux Falls, I wouldn’t live in the state. The small-minds in other parts of the state are reality. I think they believe if they allow someone from Sioux Falls on the board, we may suck up all of the tournaments. I doubt that one representative would have that much power, especially a rubber stamper from our school board.

Not sure why we are being snubbed, but I have a feeling, it has a lot to do with mis-trust of our Super and Mayor. And if that is the case, I would have to agree with the skepticism.

The final financial reports are in from the city election

No big surprises. It looks like Walmart threw in only an additional $33,000 in the last week before the election. Some interesting notes to point out in the candidate races were that Kiley received only ONE individual contributions right before the election, $250 from Cindy Huether. Cindy  also gave $250 to Tex Golfing & Michelle Erpenbach. How convenient that she gave this late in the game, knowing her name wouldn’t appear on a financial report until after the election. I guess she learned well from her sneaky husband.

Mayor Huether also had some interesting contributors. From PAC’s he got $1500 from two separate Unions, Citigroup gave $500, John Morrell’s (Smithfield) gave $1000, and one of the more interesting of his PAC contributors was HDR Engineering, which gave $500. HDR does a boatload of consulting for the city planning office. A very strange donation to Christine Erickson was from Kyle Schoenfish (used to be a Democrat, and is the son of Mayor Huether’s first cousin) who gave $125. Still trying to figure that one out.