I guess I was a little naïve to think that once we sent Rex Rolfing packing and brought on Erickson as vice-chair, things would get a little more transparent. In fact it’s gotten worse.
It’s a real head scratcher, but it is clear that the mayor had a ‘sit-down’ with Christine after she took over as vice-chair (she admitted they had a one-on-one meeting), and it seems some horse trading went on.
Make no mistake that Erickson aspires to be Mayor of Sioux Falls someday, also take into account that Diamond Jim may be our next mayor, and the rumors are getting stronger about the possibility of Huether serving as Jim’s Chief of Staff. I shutter at the thought of it.
Recently Erickson flip-flopped on the districting of the parks boards. She promised she would support it if Bruce and I would not comment about it during public input. We kept our promise. She did not. It was blatantly obvious that this change wouldn’t hurt a single soul, she really had NO reason to vote against it except for playing reindeer games with the mayor.
It also came to light that Team leadership, Erickson and Kiley, have been hand picking who can serve on RFP committees. She served on the Lloyd project RFP committee.
Not only were councilors Stehly and Starr NOT asked, they had no idea these committees were being formed.
It goes back to leadership thinking they have more power than their peers. They do not. Like I said, the charter doesn’t give them any more power. Their duties of running meetings and being ‘messengers’ to the ENTIRE council are their only REAL duties. So why are they not fulfilling those duties?
It also makes you question what certain council staffers know and what they are not sharing with other councilors. They are to report to the entire council, not just leadership. If they are being told to hide information from certain councilors, that’s an issue. We know this problem recently reared it’s head when the lead auditor followed orders from council leadership to pick our external auditor without informing the rest of the council in a public meeting.
Open government is good government, secrecy is tyranny. The tyranny with council leadership needs to end.