South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

2014

Minnehaha County

Minnehaha County Commission appoints election review commission

l3wis 9Comments

Before I go into it about how this has turned out to be a total Kangaroo Kourt, the appointments;

Kea Warne (Public Employee, SD Department of Ag, former Elections Supervisor for the SOS)

Lorie Hogstad (Public Employee, Sioux Falls City Clerk)

Bruce Danielson (Citizen)

Sue Roust (Former auditor and elected official)

Joel Arends (Citizen, attorney)

Julie Pearson (Pennington County Auditor)

Deb Elofson (Citizen, Minnehaha County Democratic Party, Political director at Craft & Associates)

When they originally discussed how this process was supposed to go, Commissioner Kelly recommended that NO elected officials sit on this commission, which I agree, but as you can tell, they threw the bath water out with the baby, and have several former and current elected officials and public employees REVIEWING themselves. That seems fair 🙁

I was originally asked by Jeff Barth to be on the commission, and I accepted his invitation, but when he relayed that information to county administrators they had to call a whaaabulance about Jeff’s choice, so he chose someone else.  The commission is so lucky they have administrators making choices for the commissioners, kind of reminds me of the directors telling city councilors what to do. I told Jeff I wanted to serve to keep a record more then anything about the proceedings, not to make a mockery of it. I also think I have covered enough of these elections to know what has and hasn’t work. When super precincts were first introduced by city clerk Owen, I saw the potential for problems, and there were, they promised those kinks would be worked out, but they haven’t, they have only made the process confusing. The first proposal I would bring to the table is the elimination of super precincts and a common election process within our city.

Besides Debra, Joel and Bruce, this Kourt seems to be stacked with people who cannot possibly give a fair assessment of the situation. There are several defenders of the SOS’s office, Bob’s office and the offending software supplier ES & S, not to mention defenders of our very clunky government processes when it comes to elections. Elections are NOT about saving money or new fangled devices, they are about fairness.

The findings should be interesting.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Is Diamond Jim still cashing in?

l3wis 10Comments

So two 2008 Harley Davidson police cruisers are magically worth $0 (Document:Harleydud ).

Actually, I spoke to a Harley dude who auction valued them at about $10-12,000 each. So how did they suddenly become worth nothing on trade-in? Was this done so they could not be auctioned? And once they are traded in for $0 does that mean when the city buys two new ones, they will get NO discount on the trade-in? And what will J & L Harley-Davidson do with them?

This is a shady deal all the way around, someone is cashing in at taxpayer expense.

Event Center Rapid City

Rapid City council votes to build new Arena without a vote of the people

l3wis 9Comments

Well, I hope they don’t hire Mortenson to handle the project, besides we have them tied up fixing our siding, on site and probably in a court room.

It looks like it will still probably go to a public vote though;

Rapid City officials have approved spending $180 million to build a new civic center arena.

The city council voted 7-3 on Monday in favor of the project after more than three hours of testimony and debate. Local sales tax money would repay the $180 million the city would seek in bonds for the arena, which could seat up to 19,000 people.

A resident started distributing a petition for a binding public vote on the expansion just moments after the council’s vote. The campaign needs roughly 2,000 signatures to force a referendum on the council’s decision.

I know that the mayor of RC said yesterday he would like to see it go to a vote. I hope they are successful in their referendum in getting it on the ballot. If that happens it will be interesting to see how the vote comes down.

Event Center Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Why is the city using an ‘Out-of-State’ legal advisor?

l3wis 2Comments

Not sure why the city is paying out $35,000 to Thompson Hine. We could be getting advice from them on naming rights associated with the Events Center, or maybe they are consulting the city on the siding issue? Not sure, hopefully a city councilor pulls this from the agenda for discussion.

UPDATE: Just got word that the city is in fact hiring Thompson Hine to represent them in any ‘possible’ litigation with the siding issue.

Notice one of their ‘services’ is providing assistance in litigation with contracts. Maybe the city is getting serious about the siding issue, nice if they would fill in the public.;

Contract Litigation

Litigation before and against the U.S. government requires highly specialized skills and knowledge of unique jurisdictions, venues, laws and regulations that are in many ways unlike more typical commercial litigation and contract issues. We represent clients in claims before and with procuring agencies; in various federal venues, including the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Civilian and Armed Services Boards of Contract Appeals, Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Dispute Resolution for Acquisition and other federal courts; and in state courts. We also represent clients before the GAO and SBA in connection with bid and size protests.

We assist and represent clients in the preparation, submission, prosecution and appeals of contract claims, including those in the following areas:

  • Suspensions of work, delay, impact, loss of productivity and acceleration
  • Defective specifications
  • Prime contractor-subcontractor disputes
  • Changed and differing site conditions as well as geotechnical matters
  • Payment disputes
SF City Council Taxes

Sioux Falls City Council’s legislative priorities

l3wis 4Comments

The council is voting on their legislative priorities Tuesday (Item #31). We only have to pay the council’s legislative advisor $80K a year to come up with these seven bullet points. Sweet deal? Huh? But you know we are ‘saving money’ by replacing former city clerk Debra Owen with three full-time people. Who appear to be getting a raise.

Once again, the city and council prefer to act like they are a dictatorship within the State of South Dakota, that can impose their own damn rules when they feel like it, and tell the state what to do;

1) That the Sioux Falls City Council, in conjunction with the South Dakota Municipal League, opposes any legislation that would inhibit municipalities from providing services requested by citizens in whatever form the citizens approve and opposes any legislation that restricts local control over taxation and spending.

This one is so poorly written, one wonders what the heck it means. The city already has control over fees and several other taxes. They just can’t raise the sales tax over a certain percentage, and I think that should stay within the power of the state legislature. If we start letting cities in SD determining sales taxes we would be paying a heckuva a lot more in Sioux Falls. I recommend the legislature kill this in committee.

2) The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation allowing municipalities alternative publication options.

I agree with this one, the city pays almost $70K a year to a newspaper that is by subscription only for legal notices, and I think it’s daily paper only reaches about 20% of the total population of Sioux Falls (according to their last audit). It would make more sense to put the legal notices in a FREE weekly shopper and ONLINE. Heck, you would reach more citizens online, and it wouldn’t cost us a red cent.

3) The Sioux Falls City Council opposes any legislation that would reduce, remove, repeal, or reallocate the municipal sales tax, liquor tax reversion, or any other municipal revenues to any other unit of government or that would expand the power to impose a sales and use tax to any other unit of government.

I disagree with this one, and hope the legislature kills this in committee. Basically this is an anti-county funding. It amazes me that a city that depends on the county to prosecute the criminals THEY arrest would deny them another funding source. Wait, maybe it doesn’t surprise me.

4) The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation that expands affordable housing opportunities in South Dakota.

While I support these efforts, it is still a vague proposal, and probably won’t carry much water in Pierre without some more details on how the city plans to expand it.

5) The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation to raise the threshold for requiring a performance bond to $50,000.

I agree with this proposal and encourage the legislature to act on this.

 

6) The Sioux Falls City Council strongly encourages the legislature to direct that any available water development funds be used to support completion of the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System in South Dakota.

7) The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation appropriating funds from the state Omnibus Water Fund for the purpose of providing advance of federal funds on a zero interest reimbursable basis for construction for Lewis & Clark Rural Water System facilities in South Dakota.

I encourage this also, but am baffled by our continuing love affair with Lewis & Clark. We already doled out $80 million for a pipeline that was expanded to Sioux Falls for emergency backup. We put in our fair share (and much more) and as far as I am concerned, it is L & C’s problem to secure more funding.

Not all of the priorities are bad, but pitting local governments against each other when it comes to funding isn’t wise, or prudent for that matter, especially when the city depends on the county for social services and prosecuting our criminals.

 

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