A South DaCola foot soldier sent me this link tonight;
A St. Catherine University security officer has been arrested after admitting that he accidentally shot himself in the shoulder Tuesday night and blamed it on a nonexistent assailant, St. Paul police say.
The story is funny, all on it’s own, but what makes it even more ironic is it was written by a former AL reporter, and I recently heard the officer that was involved with the Tuthill incident left Sioux Falls because of all the flack he got from incident.
It took Mayor Mike Huether’s tie-breaking vote this week to make it harder to win City Council elections.
The city’s top executive rarely casts votes on City Council matters, but it’s been happening at a greater clip since four new members were voted onto the 8-member legislative body last year.
And I guarantee you are going to see more of it. I suspect that since Mike, Michelle and Rex are lame ducks* they are going to be proposing ‘wish-list’ legislation all the way until the end of their terms, especially with Rex’s  success on Tuesday night, it will only embolden them. They have been salivating for awhile to get rid of public input and I also know that they are not fans of transparency. It will be interesting to watch what other crazy ordinances they propose, or what crazy ones pass. I suspect that many of them would be overturned by the next council, like the recent election threshold.
I told several councilors to prepare themselves for the onslaught.
UPDATE: It’s interesting Munson used his ties on budget or procedural issues primarily. Huether has used his in retribution, anti-citizen or plaything spending. Spreadsheet from 2006; Mayoral-tie-2006
*While Rex and Michelle have probably put death nails in their future plans for elected office, there is still a scenario for Huether. While I strongly feel that Huether really needed to announce his candidacy for governor last month, he may be looking at another approach. The primary isn’t until June. Could Huether think he really doesn’t need to officially jump into this until he absolutely has to? You never know.
Jeff said he wasn’t opposed to TIFs but wished the County Commission could make an independent decision about forgoing their share of tax money instead of the city just making that decision for them.
Dean, being the good Chamber of Commerce brown nosed soldier he is couldn’t let Jeff’s comments stand.
Dean started by peddling the half-truth that TIF’s ‘Don’t take away anything (from the county) because as he put it, “You can’t take away something you don’t have.” Well, Dean, maybe I should tell Pam Nelson that the next time I refuse to pay my property tax bill.
He went on to say he thinks TIF’s are a wonderful development tool AND incentive (yes, wonderful to the developer who gets a 13-14 year property tax break*) Does Lloyd who owns thousands of apartment units and pays more property taxes than anyone else in the County really need an ‘incentive’ to the develop? Is the company that destitute? Dean also claims that we don’t buy them the land. No, but with the Lloyd TIF we are really just giving it away. The TIF is $4.1 Million, soil cleanup is $3.1 million and the purchase price is around $900K. The way I look at it, they are getting the land for free.
Jeff responds to Dean that the city is pretty much ‘giving away’ the property (as I have pointed out) he also points out that if the city has these kind of assets/funds to give away, they could have cleaned up the soil themselves at their cost (as I have also pointed out in the past). Jeff sums up TIF’s by saying, “Tools that belong to the city that spite our interest.”
*It’s actually almost 25 years when you consider this property was supposed to be bought and developed by Lloyd over 10 years ago, instead the taxpayers of Sioux Falls sat on this land, collecting ZERO property taxes from it and essentially holding it for the Lloyd Companies. How would you like a 25 year property tax break? Think of all the upgrades you could do to your home?
I can’t believe nobody showed up to this obscure meeting, at a obscure time in an obscure location;
Sen. Jordan Youngberg, chair of the task force, chalked the scant testimony up to a dwindling desire to explore the subject.
“You had a lot of people that were angry and upset to the point that I got a threat they were going to burn my house down over the repeal of this,” the Madison Republican said of the responses to legislative efforts to strike IM-22 in January. “Where is that passion now to come and talk this through and move forward as a state?”
So you give little notice for a meeting, on a Tuesday afternoon, at 5 PM in some obscure room on the far NW part of town and wonder why no one is there? You are kidding right? First off, 5 PM is a horrible time for a meeting. It should have been at least after 6 PM or on a Saturday. Secondly, Tuesday night is a busy government city meeting night with informationals, committee meetings and a council meeting. With school just starting, this is also another reason why busy parents could not attend. And the location? Some room in the center of the University Center campus? It should have been held at the DT library or Carnegie (on a different night). Of course Mr. Youngberg still seems to be baffled by the attendance;
South Dakotans and others also criticized Youngberg for holding the meeting at 5 p.m. and for not doing more to advertise the event.
A press release advertising the meeting was released to local media on September 5 and was shared on the state Legislature’s website. Youngberg after the meeting said he wasn’t sure what more he could’ve done to promote the meeting.
For starters, remove your head from your ass. How do these clowns get elected? They have no clue about citizen customer service OR transparency. I have a suspicion this was done on purpose, just like most things organized by the SD GOP, CONFUSE, LIE & DENY.
You may or may not got a copy of this in the mail today. Sioux Falls city councilor sent them out to a select group of voters (several thousand). I also have a guest column in there. SHE PAID FOR THE PRINTING AND POSTAGE HERSELF! She did not use tax dollars OR campaign donations. (FULL DOC:Â Stehly-NL)
l3wis 
