2016

Stop the Funding may have a hearing soon

l3wis September 7, 2016 6Comments

Last week, Cory Madville did a great post about the technicality of the petition’s oath (thanks for filling in for me);

SDCL 2-1-11 requires that statewide petitions be” liberally construed, so that the real intention of the petitioners may not be defeated by a mere technicality.” If the spirit of that law applies to municipal petitions as well, then Danielson’s mis-oathed petition should stand, and the will of the voters should be heard.

Besides a bunch of armchair politicos, bloggers and attorneys, Mr. Danielson may get his day in court (details to come soon). A judge will ultimately have to decide the fate of the petition oath.

It is clear this will have to be settled in court, the city attorney, the SOS and the city clerk, Tom Greco did the right thing in invalidating the signatures, and Danielson admits he grabbed the wrong form. But what I take issue with is the defense of the city clerk in what he did before the petition was circulated.

Several councilors last night decided he needed defending, while I will defend him on invalidating the signatures, I WILL NOT DEFEND HIM on stamping the petition. Yes, Danielson has fully admitted he screwed up, he should have had an attorney review BOTH sides of the petition, he has admitted it was a mistake. But ultimately, Bruce is NOT the public official who has to verify a petition before moving forward, that is the job of the city clerk. There has been a lot of he said-she said in what happened. Bruce said he offered to show Greco the back of the form, and he said he didn’t need to see it, Greco offers that Bruce told him he didn’t need to see it. Either-or, doesn’t matter. The city clerk’s job is to verify a petition (both sides) and stamp it for approval. Greco did not do his job, period. Even if Bruce refused to show Greco the back of the form, Greco could have refused to stamp the petition. Pretty simple.

I still think the city clerk deserves a reprimand for what he failed to do at the beginning, but as of right now, it looks like that may be a judges decision.

Stop the Funding on Forum

l3wis September 3, 2016 3Comments

Sunday morning, but you can listen to the podcast now.

Despicable

l3wis August 30, 2016 32Comments

It is about the only word I can use (besides some choice cuss words) to describe what the city attorney, the mayor and city clerk did to invalidate the signatures. A pure technicality based on the oath. The oath used on the petitions was a state oath (that is actually more stringent then the municipal oath, from what I understand just says the circulator should be a Sioux Falls resident). IMO, that could be easily fixed by just checking to see if the circulators are SF residents, which as far as I know are.

Ultimately this is the failure of the city clerk. The city clerk, Tom Greco, a guy who wasn’t even registered to vote until AFTER he was hired to be city clerk, must review and stamp a petition before it can be circulated. I also find this ironic, considering during the past city election campaigns, Greco was calling candidates about editing their financial reports, and allowing them to fix mathematical errors before posting them. He seemed to catch the minute accounting errors on these reports, but didn’t catch an oath? It is his job to make sure the petition was correct before it was circulated. He should have told Danielson at the time it was the incorrect oath, he did not. Failure of the city clerk to do his job properly as the municipal election overseer is a fireable offense. The city council could move forward and fire him for not properly performing his duties.

I warned Danielson that it would be an uphill battle, because our city clerk and city attorney will try to find any loophole they can to get their way. Mayor Huether’s administration doesn’t like to lose or interference from the citizens. He proved this with his two tie-breaking votes and the veto. It may be as simple as a judge saying the petitions are valid since the circulators took an oath and the petition signers are valid. It seems that is our only option now since city administrators that we pay with our taxdollars put up a gigantic middle finger to all the people who signed the petition.

Several elected officials across the state hate petitions. Mayor Huether proved this when he refused to sign the snow gate petition even though he supported them publicly. Before Shantel Krebs became SOS, she also told a petitioner that she doesn’t sign petitions and didn’t believe in that process. These are people in leadership folks, running our elections. That should scare the CRAP out of all of us.