South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

2018

SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: this is a questionable practice for absentees

l3wis 12Comments

When I voted on Tuesday, I noticed City Clerk Denise Tucker stuffing envelopes with ballots, I thought it was kind of strange because I figured they would have already been sent out. Apparently not;

Absentee ballots weren’t mailed until Tuesday, a full two weeks after Paul TenHaken and Jolene Loetscher claimed the top two spots in the mayoral contest and Zach DeBoer and Curt Soehl beat out a crowded field in the City Council Central District to face off in the May 1 election.

“Technically, they can go earlier, but we didn’t have our ballots back and ready to go,” said City Clerk Tom Greco. The ballots are printed by a vendor in Minnesota.

By Wednesday afternoon, 736 ballots had been mailed, Greco said.

These are the kind of things happen when you have a (Uncertified) City Clerk running our elections. So if you live in California for the winter, good luck.

Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz said the city’s election laws are different than the state law he operates under. In state elections, he is required to offer absentee ballots 45 days prior to an election. Typically, the regular city election has a 15-day window.

“With the runoff it got scrunched by the time we got our programming and ballots back from the vendor,” Litz said.

They could have easily printed off 700 paper ballots on April 11 and hand counted them when they returned. If it is a close race, which I think the Central District council race will be, 736 missing ballots is not good.

While probably a majority of the ballots are mailed to people in Sioux Falls (I hope so) it surely puts the snowbirds at a disadvantage. But I have always been of the opinion you should have to live in South Dakota at least 10 months out of the year to qualify as a resident. If you are just using your SF address as a way to get out of paying a state income tax while living in California, you don’t deserve to vote for our mayor and city council anyway.

UPDATE: I’m also not buying the tw0-week turnaround at the printer. As a person who has worked in printing for over 25 years, there is such a thing as a RUSH. The printer could have easily knocked out the needed 736 ballots and overnighted them to SF within 3-4 days after April 10th.

I am also concerned that if the council race or mayor’s race is within 100-200 votes and half the absentee ballots never came back by Tuesday there could be some lawyers involved. And while that whole mess plays out guess who gets to remain as mayor? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

My immediate suggestion would be for the council to delay the election by one week and hold it on May 8th.

Elections Jolene Loetscher Marty Jackley Paul Ten Haken Sioux Falls

AG has a double standard on interfering with an election

l3wis 13Comments

Besides the fact that they have received no evidence;

The Attorney General’s statement does say investigators on this case are waiting on records from other social media entities.

The timing of this press release is questionable.

Remember when Marty’s buddy Rounds was running for Senate and they couldn’t comment on an ‘ongoing’ investigation into EB-5 during a campaign? But it seems for some reason it is OK for the AG to say they have essentially ‘found nothing’ because, well they have ‘nothing’ a couple days before an election who just happens to have a Republican VS a Democrat.

Gee, that’s not questionable at all. Marty Jackley wouldn’t do anything underhanded like that? Would he? That would be like saying a guy killed himself using a 5-Foot branch, but we won’t let you see the autopsy, just trust us.

Reminds me of when TenHaken was helping his buddy Pity Pat out move servers around the country to hide his campaign store and when we questioned the obvious conflict of interest Jackley says, “They didn’t steal anything. Investigation closed.”

Jackley has made a mockery of the AG office.

During the debate tonight, TenHaken said a major endorsement is coming. Wonder if that is from Jackley? I would think he would be smarter than that while running for Governor, but who knows, the Silver Fox wiggles his way out of all kinds of things.

SF School District Sioux Falls

Little to no compromise on school start date

l3wis 8Comments

A compromise would have been starting school the last week of August instead of going back to the original start date;

The Sioux Falls School District has been trying out different schedules for the past few years. Now, the district has decided that the 2019-2020 school year will start on August 22nd, 2019.

Most importantly, the committee sent out surveys for people to fill out their input.

A whopping 11,000 parents, students, and staff members filled out the survey.

Administrators say about 60 percent recommended school start before Labor day for the 2019-2020 school year. All three groups: students, parents, and staff, sided with the August start date.

According to survey results, 56 percent of parents, 64 percent of students, and 67 percent of staff wanted school to start prior to Labor Day.

Notice who is missing from that survey? The people who actually fund a majority of our schools, property and sales tax payers who DO NOT have children. Where was their voice? Like the sales tax increase, the concerns fell on deaf ears.

They also brought up the tired old concern about AP tests;

There were a number of factors to consider.

“AP tests -so that we had enough time with the AP tests and those semester classes,” said Nold.

Ironically, AP scores went up the year school started after labor day. It has never made sense to me to start school when it is still nice out and two weeks before a major national holiday. When I went to school we always started after labor day due to the state fair, 4-H involvement and harvest season and other summer activities. It comes down to a select group of people (the school board) telling the rest of us working stiffs that they are smartest kids in the room and be damn the public’s opinion.

Elections Paul Ten Haken Sioux Falls

UPDATE: This is why our local paper’s editorial board shouldn’t endorse candidates

l3wis 25Comments

Before the general election I thought it was strange the Argus endorsed two candidates. Both younger candidates with similar business experience. But one was a conservative and the other a progressive. It seems the two candidate endorsement wasn’t a mistake.

Earlier today TenHaken posted this on his FB page;

Because she is a recent member of the Argus Leader Editorial Board, Michelle’s letter to the editor was not able to be printed. But we have no issues posting it! Michelle Lavallee, you are an inspiration to many!

I don’t have an issue with an editorial board member endorsing a candidate on their FB page, or even endorsing them in the paper with an individual letter. But with this clear conflict, the editorial board, no matter who they support personally, or who they are, shouldn’t be endorsing candidates as a body if the members have a personal business relationship with one of the candidates. Also, besides the business relationship, Michelle is also serving as Paul’s Co-Chair for his campaign.

I think the newspaper has done a fantastic job covering the campaign and the platforms of all the candidates, and they should be doing this. But they should stay out of the endorsement game. Notice the TV stations DO NOT endorse candidates. To be truly an un-bias 4th Estate news organization you should stay away from swaying voters one way or the other. Provide the information and let the public decide.

As a blogger with an editorial slant, and as an individual I don’t think it is wrong for me to endorse a candidate. But I also don’t have a personal relationship with either candidate except that I have had a few conversations with both. I also have not directly received advertising revenue from either candidate (I have no control over my google ad circulation). Yet both have advertised on my site thru that service.

I have often felt for awhile that people who don’t research the candidates will pick up the newspaper a couple of days before the election and just blindly vote for the endorsement. This is a problem.

UPDATE: It also seems obvious that the Ed board is setting us up for an endorsement of TenHaken after reading this column. The entire content of the VM isn’t the point, the point is leaving the VM to begin with, because it was in poor judgment for Paul to call and say anything about the incident. When things get rough, the best thing to do as a political candidate is to turn the other cheek and ignore your detractors. Obviously Loetscher struck a nerve with TenHaken. If the ‘doxing’ incident wasn’t a big deal, then don’t make a ‘deal’ out of it.

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