I guess now with Former Mayor Bucktooth and Bowlcut gone, media services doesn’t have to cover a press conference every time someone had a bowel movement, so now they have to fill in the time with other pressing projects. In fact, I think Mayor TenHaken has had ONLY one press conference since he took the helm. It has been refreshing, unfortunately, this video is NOT;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQaoUSf-Ypc
Talk about a difference of opinion. One councilor is under some kind of delusional spell and one is so angry they could spit nails. You can figure it out.
First Neitzert puts on his best sombrero and gets to dancing;
But Neitzert would not have voted differently on the project even if he knew then what he knows now.
“The optics though – they are undeniably awful because of the perception and the ties of various individuals to both the project – if even fleetingly – and the entity involved in the terrible tragedy that occurred.” The terrible tragedy Neitzert mentions is, of course, the downtown building collapse. Hultgren was remodeling the old Copper Lounge building before it came down in a pile of rubble, killing a young construction worker.
It’s not just bad OPTICS it’s a bad DEAL. We should have not gone into business with these crooked clowns;
Neitzert says Council can’t really reverse its decision on the mixed- used parking ramp because the bonds have been sold and construction is ongoing.
Not so sure about that. He is basically trying to spin that the ‘train has left the station’. Actual construction HAS not started. The bonds could be put on hold and the a new RFP could be presented. As far as I see it, this is a breach of contract and gives the city the right to request a court order to stop construction. At the very least they could even nicely ask the construction company to HALT operations until they figure out the legality of the situation;
“Its just too bad this issue is hanging over this otherwise impressive project and will at least for the foreseeable future cast a cloud of controversy and doubt over it.”
There was NEVER anything ‘Impressive’ about this project. It was overpriced and underutilized. Even without the basket of snakes involved with the development, it’s NOT that good of a deal for the taxpayers.
Stehly sets it straight;
“This thing is being built on deceit and deception, in my opinion,” Stehly said. “It’s not what our citizens want from us as Council members or from City government.”
“This project has the second penny tied to it,” Stehly said. “This project is immensely expensive for a parking ramp. This project is going to raise fees for any person who is parking in a City-owned parking lot. It’s been problematic from the get-go.”
Like I said above, it wasn’t a good project to begin with, now add the deception and the already poor luster on this turd is beginning to fade even more. The city needs to put at least a temporary hold on it. The bonds will be fine in the bank collecting interest.
So the School District couldn’t say a damn thing at Monday night’s board meeting, but seem to sing like a canary once the cameras are off. They are proposing to run the election, in which we will be asked to bond well over $300 million dollars, using super precincts or vote centers.
While I am not a fan of vote centers, they CAN work if you work them correctly. Unfortunately, this is NOT the scenario we want. Why?
First, the obvious. This is a lot of money. We should open this election to the entire community at ALL precincts and we should put it in with the general election. Having a special election in the middle of September with only a handful of precincts guarantees a very low voter turnout. The school district argues they must have their levees and budget set by September 30. Poppycock, they can amend the budget and levees at any time and have admitted this already on KSOO and in the Argus Leader.
Second, Bev Chase with the School District, who will be running this election, has a terrible record on running elections. They should be contracting with the county to handle this. Last time she ran a stand alone election in 2017 there was a myriad of problems, absentee voting was locked up when she was on lunch break, many people who voted were not reported to the SOS data base that they voted in the election (I have had at least 3 voters tell me this), there were NO precincts in the entire northern part of the city.
Third, we have no idea what kind of E-Poll book they will be using and who will be running the software. This could open the election up to tampering, hacking, and voter fraud. If the software does not work correctly, people could vote multiple times at multiple precincts. Hart Interactive who originally created the hardware and software for E-Poll books no longer supports them. BPro tried to get them to work in the primaries and failed so miserably that the SOS said she will not allow their use in the General. So what tricks does the School District have up their sleeve?
Who will tabulate the votes? A hand count isn’t going to cut it. This needs to be tabulated and data needs to be generated so the SOS knows who voted. This is a large sum of money that will increase our taxes over the next 25-30 years, this isn’t electing some yahoo to the school board.
We have made the local chapter of the ACLU aware of these issues, some may be a violation of Federal Election laws, hopefully they will look into it.
Joint Minnehaha County Meeting & Informational meetings (they were both held at the County Commission chambers because Carnegie is overhauling their system right now).
l3wis