While Unruh’s position in Tea is voluntary, it is hardly comparable to running a bake sale at your church;
The nonprofit Tea Economic Development Corporation was founded in 1997 with a goal of bringing businesses to Tea, creating jobs and making the city a better place to work and live.
Governed by nine volunteer board members, it’s funded by the city and functions as a chamber of commerce. Its activities include providing information to prospective new businesses, sponsoring ribbon-cuttings and newspaper coverage for new local businesses, sponsoring a mixer for business owners in the spring and hosting an annual banquet in December.
Chellee Unruh, the new board president, shares more about the organization and its evolving role.
I want to clarify something first to all the people who have told me that Chellee is a nice lady and a good person and I should stop picking on her. First of all, it really doesn’t matter. Her farts could smell like lilacs and it still wouldn’t matter. I don’t have a problem with Unruh serving as the Board President of TEDC, what I have a problem with is her serving on the board while also serving the taxpayers of Sioux Falls. She needs to pick one or the other. This is a clear conflict of interest and unethical. While there are no rules for city directors on where they can live, I do think there are rules on serving two masters. How do you on one hand try to manage affordable housing in Sioux Falls and on the other hand you drive home at night to Tea and serve on their EC board? Which is it Chellee? Is your Sioux Falls gig just a paid charity program you are doing to pay the bills? Do you work for Sioux Falls or Tea? Sorry, but providing affordable housing for citizens IS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT! This is why it is a conflict.
And you thought hiring an online tool salesman to run your tech department was a bad idea!
This of course doesn’t surprise me, the ethical nightmare TenHaken’s administration is turning into is frightening, and we should all be alarmed.
There should be a strict rule that city personnel must live inside city limits. Other cities require this. If it’s someone new, they can be given a year to comply. Another part of this rule should be one must focus on city duties without outside circumstances. Reasons for this posture are professional and ethical. Also, a duty of the city is to promote from within and give citizens job priority. It’s impossible to hold down two full time jobs in two different cities. It looks good on a resume but both suffer from lack of focus and potential conflicts of interest.
This sort of thing is a corrupt hood wink in Sioux Falls. Tea is an all American city with a democratic charter. They should be the one to ask for a resignation.
Sure is interesting the IT and Innovation Director helped move his job to Tea and then our mayor hires him to move more jobs to Tea through another important hire, Unruh. Sioux Falls taxpayers shouldn’t have a city government to encourage job and tax growth in other towns. Who does the non-homeowner Unruh actually serve? She tried running for city of Tea office and now she is on the inside of Sioux Falls city government so she can steal information for Tea?
What would Woodstock do?
The stats we’re seeing about the huge percentage of public school students being eligible for subsidized lunches, etc is a clear indication of a BIG low income population in SF. Somehow these people need to be brought to the polls in 2022 to put an end to this PTH oligarchy. The big money / pro development trickle down economic mantra that “A rising tide lifts all boats†is BULLSHIT. The “rising tide†just makes room for bigger super yachts in the harbor while the everyman boats lose their slips. All of these overpaid municipal appointees gaming the system for their personal income reward has GOT to be stopped.