Mayoral Finance Reports
I am shocked by these amounts because I’m not sure what Jim has been spending his contributions on.
I am shocked by these amounts because I’m not sure what Jim has been spending his contributions on.
First it was the special projects manager, than the building services director, than the fire chief, than the city attorney, than the finance director now the communications person;
After more than five years of service to the City of Sioux Falls, Communications Specialist Heather Hitterdal has announced her resignation effective May 15, 2018.
“Heather has been a large component in our success, and I have been so fortunate to work alongside her. We have changed the way that Sioux Falls government communicates with our people, and we certainly have been aggressive getting the word out. I wish her nothing but the best in life, and serving with her till the end of my term is a blessing and an honor,†says Mayor Mike Huether.
She certainly has been aggressive getting the ‘propaganda’ out, but the facts seemed to have slipped through her fingers from time to time. I figured out Heather early on when she had to tattle-tail to her boss that Joe Sneve was having a beer with me at Monks. I think I literally saw her texting the mayor right after she saw us together.
Hopefully some other directors in the administration will make it easier for the next mayor and quit now while they are ahead, specifically the Planning Director, Information Services, Health Director, Parks Director and Police chief. After the runoff candidates are announced Tuesday night I expect more resignations and probably even more after the new mayor is elected on May 1st.
If I was in the document shredding business, I would certainly be calling on city hall right now.
The hits keep coming;
In the lawsuit, IJK, LLC, a limited liability company managed by Kant, alleges that he was forced out of Eastwold in violation of the terms of the lease. The lease agreement that Kant signed with CLP Investments, the company that bought the Copper Lounge, allowed the building owner to terminate the lease in the event Eastwold was damaged, but only if 75 percent of the premises was untenantable.
I wondered when this suit was coming. As I understand it there was little damage to the Eastwold building after the collapse. The Eastwold building is actually a separate building from the building that collapsed.
This is not uncommon for sitting elected officials to endorse other candidates. When Cynthia Mickelson was running for School Board, Erickson publicly endorsed her.
Either way, any elected official can endorse a candidate. It is well within their 1st Amendment rights and freedom of speech.
There is a lot of people running for mayor this time around. And a lot of them are trying to ‘sell’ us their ideas. We don’t need another ‘salesperson’ for mayor.
Besides the backroom deals, the private investments with developers and the total lack of transparency and honesty from 8 years of Huether, ever notice he was always trying to ‘sell’ us something. If it wasn’t the Events Center it was an indoor pool, if it wasn’t the administration building it was the RR redevelopment, and in his final hoorah he sold us a parking ramp that costs double of what it should, doesn’t provide enough parking and puts us in cahoots with someone that is facing civil and Federal charges.
ENOUGH!
With all the debt he piled up with these purchases he cleverly tried paying down some of it with increased fees and taxes and sneaky ‘enterprise’ accounts. From May of 2010 – August of 2017 the administration initiated and the council passed over 50 fee and tax increases.
Now that we have a housing shortage, contractors will tell you that one of the biggest hurdles to providing more housing (even those that can afford it) is regulations. In the same time period above the mayor and council passed over 70 new code ordinances.
And what about the debt? Also in this same period there was 50 supplemental appropriations passed (extra budgeting) and 15 revenue bonds.
Our next mayor needs to stop selling us stuff because it is costing us dearly. It is actually hurting growth, mostly in sales tax revenue. People don’t buy things when they are immersed in personal debt and high taxes and fees.
Our next mayor needs to hold the brakes on spending, increasing taxes and fees, and passing more regulations (we actually need to work on eliminating some). We need to get back to providing reliable public services at an affordable rate. The monument building needs to put on hold, and we need to focus on the most important thing in our city – IT’s PEOPLE!