Support the Minimum wage increase
l3wis 
2014
Breaking: Bruce Danielson found NOT guilty on all 3 criminal charges
Read the background here.
One of the counts was dismissed.
As you know Bruce is the person who started Citizens for Integrity. Bruce was also instrumental in helping SON, Save Spellerberg and the Snowgate petition drive. Bruce also has filed several ethics complaints against the mayor over pre-election presentations. He also helped file two complaints about the municipal election ballot language.
He is a man of integrity.
As for the case. Bruce’s neighbors have used city code enforcement for over  20 years to harass him while he has made improvements to his home, which has enraged the neighbors. They lost today, and rightly so. It is neither the city’s business or his neighbors on how he chooses to work on his house. In fact Joni Cutler, while giving her decision, commended Bruce for his ‘Passion’ in improving his property.
The city tried to prove that he held a criminal ‘public nuisance’ with his construction materials stored in his locked fenced off back yard. As judge Cutler pointed out, in the 20 years he has worked on his home, no health nuisances have occurred and the city failed to prove that one is imminent.
At one point in the trial, the city attorney became enraged when Bruce’s attorney brought up how Bruce was arrested and made to strip down and wear ‘stripes’ for 6 & half hours with common criminals over ‘building materials’. Bruce’s attorney, Charles Dorothy said in his closing arguments that being arrested for this was ‘offensive’. The city attorney ranted that this was brought up to fuel a civil suit against the city and the the media was ‘called’ in to report this. John Hult from the Argus Leader was at the trial all day, and I am sure he will write a long story about it.
Bruce has believed that this was a vendetta by the city for all of his involvement with the different petition drives and ethics complaints, and also bringing to attention that the EC siding was put on wrong.
There is much more to come. This is only the beginning.
Today the GOOD neighbor WON and the BAD neighbors lost.
I agree with Mayor Huether, let’s end bullying in Sioux Falls, let’s start at Carnegie & City Hall
I have a little different perspective on it then he does, as I am sure you suspected.
While I do agree with him that work place/school discrimination and domestic violence is intolerable I do draw a line with freedom of speech. While saying ‘naughty hurtful words’ should be discouraged, the 1st Amendment is pretty clear about our constitutional rights. In yesterday’s press conference, Huether referred to a FB comment he read that said (in reference to the man getting punched outside of Wiley’s) “LOL. Maybe he should have minded his own business.†While the LOL was not needed (Lot’s of Laughs, is what Huether said it meant, which made me LMFAO*) I kind of agree with the rest of the comment to a point.
If it was a different situation, I would have definitely said something to the lady, but since the situation occurred while everyone involved was probably tanked outside of Wiley’s (a place known for it’s fighting problems) probably not a time to take a stand. For example, last night me and about 5 other people got doused with beer when someone behind us threw a cup. I turned around and saw some wannabe bikers laughing. I certainly could have went over and asked who the f’ing wise guy was, but you know what? I minded my own business, and guess what, no one got hurt. Did the gentleman outside of Wiley’s deserve to get punched? Nope. Violence is never a solution. Do I commend him for sticking up for himself and friends? Definitely! But like I said, if you put yourself in certain situations, there can be unintended consequences, especially when fueled by alcohol. Just look at the problems associated with drinking at Van Eps Park.
There are situations where you need to turn the other cheek, or you just might get punched in the face. It’s your choice I guess, like I said, the 1st Amendment guarantees us the right to pretty much say what we want as private citizens. It is clear though that employers can’t discriminate in this manner, and assaulting your spouse or bystanders is not included in this right. Please, let’s all stop punching each other over ‘words’. What an incredible waste of time and energy, and also, let’s stop crying over spilt milk.
This is where I disagree with mayor Huether on bullying. He seems to think this is about school kids, minorities, domestic assaults or gays, it is much more encompassing then that.
He lacks to mention peer bullying (most people think of this kind of bullying going on in school between classmates). It is also an issue in the workplace. In fact I believe it is an issue at Carnegie Hall.
I have seen city councilors, the mayor, city directors, city employees and citizens all bully each other at the meetings. In fact on one occasion, which still irks me to this day (the mayor says it is okay to get mad about bullying) is when Councilor Erpenbach bullied the snowgate petitioners and shut down public comment in support of an early election. Each week I have also watched several city councilors bully citizens when they say something they don’t like in public testimony. The mayor on several occasions has cut off councilors during discussions and asked for a roll call vote. They are all guilty, including myself, when I offer ultimatums during public testimony. I apologize.
I have also witnessed bullying by code enforcement officers, police officers and the city attorney’s office. In fact, a former city attorney bullied one of my friends for seven years which cost him over $40K.
Like I said, I am all for free speech, citizens have a right to address their government about concerns, but public officials don’t have a right to bully citizens when we bring up these concerns. I saw this recently when the city refused to pay for damages the SFPD SWAT team created. In another incident a guy is being taken to small claims court over not building a dumpster enclosure fast enough. So if city officials are going to hold press conferences to tackle the problem of bullying, they must first look in the mirror and get their own house in order. Â I’m glad the mayor brought this issue to light, and I hope he looks at the bullying going on by the employees he manages. If Huether believes in leading by example it is imperative he sets a good example to city employees and directors. The same goes for the council (None of them attended the press conference yesterday).
BTW, Huether mentioned bullying that goes on on blogs. So I thought it would only be appropriate to comment on his press conference, on my blog.
*LMFAO. Which means ‘Laugh my funny arm off’
UPDATE: We could have had the opening EC concert at the Arena
Our first concert at the EC, at $10 a ticket is only expecting about a 3rd of capacity;
Huffman said he expects a crowd of about 4,000.
Makes you wonder how many empty seats will be at the other ‘sold out’ concerts, or if most of those seats have been scooped up by scalpers.
UPDATE:
If I had to make a rough estimate of how many people were at the show last night, I would say between 2,500-3,500. Maybe the EC and SMG will release how many attended. In the AL today they estimated 4-5,000, but didn’t have hard numbers ‘available’. They must have had the Lifelight counters present.
Parking will be an issue for the sold out concerts. Let’s say there was 5,000 people there last night. When we arrived most of the Arena and EC parking lot was full, there were people parked on the street also. We parked in the South Canaries lot which had very few cars in it. For your typical concert that is at that 5,000 range, parking should be fine. But when there is a sold-out show or multiple events, it is going to be a major problem.
The sound was pretty decent for Joan Jett, but not as good for Starship. I was not too impressed by the light show.
As for drink prices they run about $6 for a 16 OZ tap and $6 for a well drink. You are allowed to tip the bar and beertenders, but cash only. If you run your card they do not give you an opportunity to leave a tip on it, and I got the feeling they are not allowed to. So I asked why they could not have a tip jar in view. An SMG employee said this, “We were told by management (SMG) that since it is a city owned facility we are not allowed to put out tip jars.”
I’m just shooting in the wind on this one, but I think that is a complete line of BS from SMG. I can’t imagine a city ordinance existing that prevents ‘tip jars’. Besides, when I have been to concerts at the Pavilion, I have seen tip jars by the bars, and that is a city owned facility.
So what would be the reasoning behind SMG not wanting to encourage tipping their employees? The more money people spend on tips, the less they spend on buying product.
SIDING UPDATE:
I also noticed in the AL today that the siding mockups have not been started. The excuse the city attorney gave; they were working on touch ups to other parts of the building. Then when asked about when they would start the mockups, the city attorney said that Mortenson has up to a year to come up with a solution. In other words, we better get used to the siding we have now, because it will probably never get fixed.