While we are talking County bizzo, I was told the other day that assistant Minnehaha county administrator, Robert Wilson told the chair of the election commission that he didn’t want bloggers on the email press release list. His reasoning was we ‘have a point of view’. Damn right we do, and you are going to hear that view right now.
The chair submitted the email contacts of three important blogs in the state, South DaCola, Madville Times and Dakota War College (well at least two of them are important 🙂
I found this odd, because we are all different, and as we would all attest, we are on several press release email lists (I often get chastised when I don’t post something from these peeps). They range from ag, art, party politics, candidates, medical, homelessness and several other non-profits and government entities.
We are not monsters in the closet. But after the appointment of Jean Bender today, I’m finding out more and more that the county likes to operate from the view of information lockdown.
Speaking of that, I guess at the election review meeting today the new machines locked up on the ES & S techs as they were bragging about how great of machines they were.
Image: John Hult, Argus Leader Twitter feed
Priceless. Nothing better then a car salesman telling you how great a car is and it won’t start.
There was also a diatribe from (an elected official) defending Bob Litz because he doesn’t have enough cold storage space (Hey, Bob’s house is big enough to store his beer, free weights and deer jerky).
During the meeting, Pearson didn’t hold back. She says the commissioners aren’t providing adequate amount of space needed to work on election day. Pearson says they need enough space to keep the ballots secure. Ballots need to be in a temperature controlled room, otherwise moisture can effect whether the counting machines will read them.
As commissioner Kelly recommended from the beginning, there should not have been any other elected officials on this commission, and in my opinion, public employees. They are only going to defend instead of fairly review. I recommend the rest of the commission purge these members now and reappoint.