Robert and crew have put up several VIDEO interviews HERE. Scroll down to bottom of main page. So far Gunn, DeBoer, Weiland, Anderson, Entenman & Bardon have done the video interview. I do know that Jolene is also scheduled for next week.
As I am sure the producers of the poll would tell you, this is unscientific poll due to many factors (not all registered SF voters, multiple votes, etc.) But it is a good starting point
Results are as of NOON, 3/8/18
TenHaken 35%
I guess it doesn’t surprise me that Paul is leading in the poll. While I don’t agree with his campaign, he does have an enormous social media presence. He is also the candidate I hear the most discussion about.
Jamison 31%
Personally this doesn’t surprise me, I have been speculating for a couple of weeks that Jamison will be in the runoff. While I don’t hear his name mentioned, I think it is because Greg has wide support, and the people that are going to vote for him have already made up their minds in the General Election. When people bring up Paul or Jolene to me, they always have a lot of questions.
Loetscher 23%
This is about where I have had Jolene for awhile. 3rd Place. But don’t under estimate Jolene, she could easily knock TenHaken out of the runoff. She is a very savvy and determined person and these results may just fuel her fire to work harder. Like I said above, I hear a lot of discussion about Jolene.
Entenman 8%
This actually surprises me. I have THOUGHT for awhile that Jim was the frontrunner. Maybe the $75K infusion of his own money was a sign he knew he was a little behind the 8-Ball through internal polling. Don’t underestimate Jim either. He is well known in the community, but mostly with the established business class. I don’t think his business involvement hurts his candidacy, I think only serving one term on the council when he could of easily served two terms may have hurt voters perception of him.
Anderson 2%
I actually had Kenny a little higher on the scale than this. But this also shouldn’t be a surprise. Kenny is being out spent by his opponents. Personally if I was running Kenny’s campaign I would tell him to definitely stay in the race to help drive the community conversation, but I would also encourage him to openly endorse Jamison BEFORE the general election.
Gunn 0%
Mike is a virtual unknown in the race and it is no surprise he is in last place.
There was also some questions about policy.
Crime comes in first place, but what surprises me is that Development & Growth outweighs Transparency and Roads. It also surprises me that Roads are so far down on the totem pole.
We have also known for a long time that affordable housing is very lacking in the community. I have said this has more to do with wages than actual housing costs. I also believe property taxes are too high in Sioux Falls, and with the prospect of building several new public schools on the horizon, we may see those taxes rise even more.
Like I said, this is an unscientific poll, but it is revealing in many ways.
Of all the organizations that I would think WOULD NOT close the public out of a municipal election candidate forum, I would think it would be the Unions in Sioux Falls.
Imagine our surprise when Bruce and I arrived and were told the meeting was closed to Union members and he could not film (ironically they didn’t tell him until after he setup his camera – no he didn’t turn it on).
Not only did they close the public out and our filming, they separated the council candidate questioning from the mayoral candidate questioning sessions.
It has been so bizarre this year with all these ‘closed’ candidate forums. As I told Bruce later, “What is funny is that the senior citizen surviving only on Social Security VOTE counts just the same as a Chamber Member, a Union Member, a Realtor or a Rotary Club member. They all get ONE.”
With all the talk about transparency in government, these forums are the epitome of the exact opposite. If I was one of the candidates I would have said, “As a staunch supporter of open and transparent government I will not be participating unless the public is invited to attend.”
I guess you have to belong to a special interest club these days to hear what our future elected leaders have to say.
Leave it to Rex Rolfing to get one last dig in on Stehly before he leaves. Ironically his stint on Inside Town Hall was supposed to be about a cemetery and his ‘accomplishments’ on city council. He could only name things that we the taxpayer’s paid for (but didn’t get to have a say in).
When mentioning the indoor pool at Spellerberg he commented that it should have been built at Drake Springs and that just a ‘few’ people got involved and a ‘few’ people voted against in an indoor pool.
Actually, Stehly and Co. collected several thousand signatures and several thousand voters approved an outdoor pool at the location.
As for the location, as I have mentioned numerous times, Nelson park would have been a terrible location for an indoor pool due to ground water issues as our very own aquatic consultant told us when recommending the Spellerberg location.
What is even more troubling is that Rolfing made these statements about a fellow councilor (without saying her name) on a media source funded by taxpayers. He also rips on her at the end of the show about not collaborating. Not sure if my memory serves me, but I think there is an ethics violation in there somewhere.
He was also asked what he would tell future councilors, he would recommend changing public input, he said in his opinion it is ‘Too Darn Long.’ He went on to rant that ‘he can’t have everyone in Sioux Falls telling him what to do.’ Hey Rex, you know as a councilor you are a representational officer of the people? He basically defends his votes that are against the citizenry on closed government. LOL! A closed government he adamantly supported.
Isn’t it amazing this guy has learned nothing about government in the 8 long years he has been there. Rex, do you need help moving to Florida?
Here’s a big shout out for Downtown Sioux Falls, bringing Charles Marohn to town on Monday, March 5, 2018. Great Job DTSF!
Why the shout out? Some of us were lucky to hear him in person at the Icon Lounge Events Hall and feel the surge of energy he produced. We hope the video has some of the lasting impact.
For those who do not know of Charles Marohn, he started a grass roots movement to rethink how towns are going to survive into the future, the website is strongtowns.org.
Cameraman Bruce was invited to record the event so the rest of the town could consider the possibilities of structured controlled growth before we step off the boom town cliff we are ready to fall off.
After the presentation, Cameraman Bruce was able to visit with Marohn as he was finishing an interview with a local reporter. The subject of big box event centers was brought up. Marohn’s nutshell view of event centers is almost exactly opposite of the current Sioux Falls administration, why? The investment in big structures never pays off due to repair costs to keep the building up. The outflow of cash from the community to far off places. The ongoing debt load never stops even after the bond payments are done.
He also stated, if the event center is sold to the public as an amenity, fine. It’s a cost to make the community better. If the event center is sold as a money making operation, it will always be a loss for the community. There can never be enough profit to trickle down to the town. So it is better to just claim it is a nice amenity.
In other words, it was back to build the town from the bottom up, the only parts of town able to not drain the community are the core areas. Boom Boom sprawling growth only hurts the growth. We already know how far Sioux Falls itself can grow, the boundaries have been set. What are we going to do to plan for the time when this town will have to start rebuilding from the core to handle more people? How are we going to employ and where with the employees work if we continue to destroy our surrounding farmland with cheap housing developments?
l3wis