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.