A group of South Dakota journalists announced Tuesday they are starting a nonprofit to provide more in-depth coverage of topics across the state.
The South Dakota News Watch team brings decades of experience in the state’s two biggest print newsrooms, with three ex-Argus Leader editors and a former editor of the Rapid City Journal involved in the inception of the fledgling news service.
The group’s two paid staff members, Executive Director Maricarrol Kueter and investigative reporter Bart Pfankuch, aim to provide free news coverage that can be used by other media outlets in the state.
“Every newspaper in South Dakota, every radio station and every TV station, starting today, has a new investigative reporter on their staff,†Pfankuch said. “And that’s me.â€
I just find it funny they are essentially setting up a blog that will regurgitate news across the state while adding their own content. Essentially doing what blogs in SD have been doing for years.
Some accuse me of being a Negative Nancy when it comes to Sioux Falls, but I will give credit, when credit is due.
Teri Ellis Schmidt, SMGÂ and their teams deserve a big thumbs up for bringing in Pheasant Fest. It’s the first time SD hosted the event (that really should be here every year) and the largest convention the city has ever seen. We are expecting over 30,000 visitors.
But let’s just be honest here, unlike Garth Brooks who stripped over $7 million from our community in a matter of days, Pheasant fest will bring in millions in economic impact that will truly get re-circulated in our community! And that is something to celebrate and praise.
Ironically I talked about this last night at the city council meeting before the Finance Director, Tracy Turbak lost his marbles. I figured we could get the end of the year financials from the State Department of Revenue. But that wasn’t my point, my point is that we should get that information from our Finance Department, especially before voting on a re-finance or spending $3.3 million in surplus.
A concerned citizen sent this to the city councilors yesterday after doing his own research. As I have been predicting we came in somewhere between 1-2%;
Subject: January 2018 2% Municipal Sales Tax
February 8, 2018 the local January 2018 2% municipal sales tax report was published on-line by the SD Dept. of Revenue.  The twelve month rolling growth rate is now 2.05%, an improvement from December 2017’s 1.8%; November 2017 was also 2.05%.
The most improved sector was retail trade (53% of the total), 0.93% 12 month rolling growth rate (Dec. 2017) to 1.41% (Jan. 2018).  The net dollar amount of this nearly 0.5% increase was $ 331,000 in 2% municipal sales tax.
Six of the eight retail trade sub-sectors contributed to the month to month gain.  Rank order of gainers: food stores, miscellaneous retail, apparel & accessory stores, eating & drinking establishments, furniture stores and auto dealers (about $ 394,000). Two sub-sectors of retail trade were a drag in January: building materials, general merchandise stores (about – $ 83,000).
Source: SD Dept. of Revenue, “Statistics for All Cities by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Major Group and Division,” Sioux Falls General Recap, Tax Due, p. 935.
Finance Director, Tracy Turbak ‘FREAKS’ on city council
If you FF to the discussion about the re-finance of the city’s bonds (1:03), you will see a very disturbed and angry finance director freak out on the council accusing them of not trusting him and not being able to figure out why they won’t approve one of his re-finance plans.
First off, like most things coming from the administration, the cards are held tightly to the jacket until the last minute when something needs to be ramrodded through. Turbak didn’t give the council the option of spending the surplus until the 2nd reading last night.
Secondly, most of the council wants to spend it on something else or NOT at all. They just haven’t had a discussion to determine what that is yet.
And lastly, as councilor Stehly pointed out, their probably needs to be proper public notice before that happens to follow open meetings laws, and the city attorney kind of agreed and said he needed to look into it.
So the council DID approve the refinance and told Turbak they will get back to him with a decision about the surplus hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
The council seemed bewildered why Tracy freaked out, but it was no surprise to me, because with the assistance of the mayor’s piss poor attitude towards the council, Tracy has often shown a great deal of contempt towards them, and has often ‘lipped off’ at councilors when they ask questions. In fact one councilor (I think Kiley) pointed out to Tracy that they WILL ask questions of him and expect answers.
Tracy was completely out of line last night, especially when following chain of command. While MMM may be his boss, Tracy does work for the ELECTED city council also and the more importantly the citizens they represent. And while he doesn’t have to take orders from them, they DO have to approve or disapprove his proposals.
He didn’t do a very good snow job on the council last night, and like MMM, Tracy’s days are also numbered.
*Tracy also made the comment that the end of the year financials usually are NOT released until the end of February each year. While that may be true, I think this year is unique due to the election and the fact Turbak was asking for a re-finance. It seems he has the information already, so why not release it early before asking the council to spend the surplus. It would be helpful.
Advocates, A bad bill is up tomorrow (Wed) Feb.14, 3:30pm.
 HB 1275 would all but abolish the initiated measure process. Its burdensome signature gathering requirements are designed to quash our ability to participate in direct democracy by creating arbitrary requirements by senate district. There’s a good letter in today’s Argus about this.Â
This measure could make the initiative process impossible to use altogether. Currently, initiated measures require signatures from voters numbering at least 5% of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial contest. HB 1275 would require signatures numbering that 5% in each of 2/3 of all senate districts in South Dakota. This geographic signature requirement would make it nearly impossible to place initiated measures on the ballot in the future.Â
• How many people even know their senate district? Currently, you write your county on every petition you sign, not your legislative district. HB1275 would replace that by requiring you to write your senate district instead. Every 10 years there is redistricting, which moves senate district lines. County lines don’t move.
• Requiring every signer to place their senate district of registration on the ballot is a wishful expectation that would invalidate hundreds of otherwise valid signatures.Â
• Grassroots efforts would be woefully overwhelmed by this burdensome requirement.Â
• Making matters worse, HB 1275 states that signatures from a particular senate district can ONLY be collected by circulators from that same senate district. Â
• You would have to have 35 people, one from each district, standing together, petition in hand, in order to gather signatures at the State Fair or on college campuses. Â
• HB 1275’s new requirements apply to initiated measures only, not to a referendum or an initiated constitutional amendment. They do not apply to the signatures people must gather to run for state-wide offices. This clearly indicates the anti-initiative purpose of this bill.
• Elections already serve the purpose of letting all South Dakotans weigh in – one voter, one vote.
• This is clearly an attack on the initiative process.Â
HB 1275 is a bad bill. It doesn’t need amendments. It needs to go away. It would make it all but impossible for citizens to utilize their direct democracy process. It did not come from the Initiative and Referendum Task Force. It would only serve to undermine the initiative process.
While I have said we have good choices in central district candidates Bardon, DeBoer and Hurlbert I’m a bit wary of candidate Soehl after reading his financial report (FULL DOC:  Soehl-Finance )
It seems Mr. Soehl has a lot of big wheels behind him hoping they will get their corporate welfare rubber stamper on the city council to do their bidding.
Here’s a list of a few of his donors;
Cindy Huether (Mayor Huether’s wife)
Nathan Peterson (Sanford Health)
Lowell Hyland (Retired MD, Angel Investor)
Mark Wahlstrom (VP Business Development, First Dakota Title)
Dana Dykhouse (President of First Premier)
Scott Gullickson (VP at First Premier Bank)
Dave Sweet (Chairman of the Board, Ramkota Companies)
Nick Gustafson (Bender Commercial)
David Knutson (First Premier Bankcard)
Mike Crane (Developer)
Steve Erpenbach (Current Central District city councilor Michelle Erpenbach’s husband)
Michael Bender (Developer, Bender Commercial, chair of Jim Entenman’s mayoral campaign)
Dennis Breske (Commercial Realtor, NAI)
Craig Lloyd (Developer, Lloyd Companies)
The next financial report is due on April 5th (the Thursday before the Tuesday election). Hopefully all the candidate reports will be filed online by the end of the day Friday so voters have a chance to ‘follow the money’ before the election on Tuesday.
l3wis 