South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

2019

Chellee Unruh Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls

Does the City of Sioux Falls housing director work for us or Tea, SD?

l3wis 4Comments

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.

Employment

Higher Wages is the ONLY answer to a worker shortage

l3wis 4Comments

It seems Omaha is struggling with the same thing we are in Sioux Falls, low wages and trouble recruiting;

Nebraska business leaders have been sounding the alarm on the state’s shortage of skilled workers, seeking to get politicians to do more to help the state attract the workforce it needs to grow.

But there’s something CEOs themselves can do to pull in more workers: pay higher wages. And it appears that if Omaha’s employers want to be competitive in the job market, they may need to do that.

What often surprises me is the resistance to pay higher wages. I have argued when your employees are making more, they are spending more. That means a better local economy and more tax dollars for a better community. Keeping your workers poor really only makes you richer in the short term but hobbles the economy in the long term. Aren’t you tired of watching the local news telling us every night that shelters, food kitchens and food pantries continue to grow and expand? I am, it is something we shouldn’t be bragging about. Sioux Falls is an attractive city, why not make it more attractive by paying higher wages?

FF 24:20 (This was at the Sioux Falls Rotary)

Neel Kashkari, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, takes audience questions during a meeting of the Rotary Club of Downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on August 7. 2017.

Democrats Republicans

While the SD Dem Party is in full collapse, the National Republican Party is dealing with the largest crisis in the history of their party

l3wis 8Comments

We both know that when you compare what goes on in DC and what goes on in SD they are two different things.

What surprises me about the SDDP debt is that it really isn’t that much. There are many high-ranking Dems in this state that could cut a check to pull the party out of it’s measly $40K debt. Heck, they could probably find 40 dems to give $1,000 each. I think a lot of long time Dems have become disenfranchised over the past 10 years due to the party leadership’s concerns about where school kids go to the bathroom instead of about better paying jobs for ALL South Dakotans, properly funded education, a fair taxation system and the farm economy.

I look at the party’s collapse as an opportunity for people in this state to re-invent the party as strong opposition to the party of Trump, one of the most crooked, corrupt and dishonest presidents in the history of this country. Heck, if the Dem party gets their poop in a group, I might even re-register as a Dem.

Speaking of Trump and the National Republican Party, it seems some of the party leaders are running scared;

Earlier this week, the conservative Daily Caller website asked the offices of each of the 53 Republican senators whether they opposed the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump. Just seven of them said yes.Which is, well, verrrrrrry interesting. (Mike Marion Rounds was one of the 7)

And why wouldn’t they? Think about it, when (not if) the Congress AND Senate finds Mr. Trump guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, the National GOP will have NO choice but to cleanse themselves of him before he collapses the entire party. And if Republicans are good at one thing, it’s throwing their colleagues under the bus to save their own asses. Honestly though, I already think it is too late. The GOP should have never let him be the nominee, and they will paying for this for years.

So I recommend anyone considering running as a Dem in SD next year to get in early, because Nationally, it is going to be a really good year for Dems and a really miserable one for Republicans – now if we can just get SD voters to grow a brain before next November.

Greg Neitzert Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls T.J. Nelson

UPDATE: Is Mayor TenHaken’s Deputy COS Staff, TJ, scared of Cameraman Bruce?

l3wis 7Comments

Bruce told me today he was able to ride along on the Capital Projects Tour with the city council and film most of it. He said it was very informative, and since it was a posted public meeting (working session) anyone from the public could come along on the bus tour.

Right before the bus was about to leave, the Deputy COS of staff to the mayor, TJ Nelson was approaching the bus to go on the tour, but once he saw Bruce getting on with his camera, he turned around and never came. Some councilors questioned what happened to him.

TJ must have gotten Cameraman Bruce confused with ‘The Living Man’ Christopher Bruce . . .

. . . Who announced today he will be sentenced in 8 days instead of December. He thinks he will probably get 10 Months. He also included a tidbit about the Mayor’s father possibly having a link to 5G expansion and the telecoms. I had heard some rumblings about that, but haven’t had anyone else confirm it with me. Maybe one of our talented investigative reporters in town could dig around on that instead of chasing the State’s Attorney on his drunken bike rides.

UPDATE: Speaking of Mayor TenHaken, I guess him and councilor Neitzert are rumored to have attended the FCCLA conference in Texas. They both justified it’s relevance and being above the board because this group paid all expenses associated with the conference. They used to be called the FHA. I’m assuming they were hired as speakers at the event.

I have no doubt they are trying to groom Neitzert to run for mayor.

On a side note, I heard the Mayor has upped the ante on whoever will challenge Stehly (if she decides to run) from $100K to $130K.

Money, Money, Money, Mooonnnnneeey.

Media Sioux Falls

Is KSFY already transitioning reporters over to KDLT?

l3wis 5Comments

I had to chuckle a little bit while watching this video, at the end of the video, KSFY reporter, Jill Langland (who I haven’t seen for awhile on that station) closes by saying ‘Jill Langland, KDLT News’.

I checked to see if the same story was on KDLT or if Jill was listed as a reporter over there. Nope.

So I guess we already know who is going to transition to that station. Maybe they should tell Jill though that the transition really hasn’t taken place yet, or maybe this is a way of softly bracing the public for Jill’s transition 🙂

As we all have suspected, when GRAY bought KDLT, it probably won’t expand our news coverage, it just expands their bottom line with more advertisers. Maybe they should just have reporters from both stations sign off, ‘Reporting for KSFDLT news, so there is no future confusion.

Speaking of transitions, I see Bridgett Bennett didn’t last long in Sewer City, as I suspected she wouldn’t. She probably had some weird non-compete where she couldn’t be in the Sioux Falls market for a year, and since KCAU is owned by the same media company as Stormland TV, I’m sure they probably had this in the works for a while, but who knows? She will be replacing Sammi Be Yellin’.

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