South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

April 2020

Corona Virus Kristi Noem Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls ‘Stay at Home’ order will be an interesting City Council discussion and vote

l3wis 4Comments

As Mayor TenHaken said today, the city council will consider the first reading of a stay at home order on Wednesday but will have to wait until next Tuesday to implement it. We get a peek of what it looks like below and HERE (Items 22-34). I have a feeling the discussion on the ordinance Wednesday night (not on the normal Tuesday) will be high drama. At this point I think the council is split on the issue, but I do encourage them to at least pass a 1st reading and if things change or get better by next Tuesday, they can just kill it or scale it back. I don’t think that is the case, I think by next Tuesday we will be in dire straits.

Many businesses are pounding on Councilors and the Mayor (mostly the self-employed) about not doing the order. I have argued with many councilors and business owners “If you can’t survive a 3 week closure of your business, you obviously 1) don’t have a good business model 2) don’t have a backup plan or savings for when these things occur. There has already been a stay home order in place pretty much for people who work in restaurants (wait staff) the elderly (65 and older) most public employees, teachers and students. Oh, and also covid patients that are not hospitalized. I’m not sure how all of these peeps can be forced to stay home, yet others cannot? But they can, as we will see (or not see).

I also remind businesses that there is Federal help available if you seek it. Many businesses I have talked to have taken advantage of the programs while still paying employees. You do have options.

While the stay at home orders are inconvenient, I have to remind people, until there is widespread testing of almost all of us, there is no safe way to work together in large groups. We can talk about possible treatments (the president invests in) expensive Cadillac ventilators (we are paying for, instead of effective cheaper models) and a vaccine that is probably over a year away, but let’s face it. There are only two ways to stop the spread at this point. Stay away from each other and ramp up testing, big time. Public health and safety should be our top priority, not whether the nation can have their BLT’s.

Here is the important part of the ordinance;

Section 1: Stay at Home Mandated

Effective immediately upon publication on April 24, 2020, residents of and visitors to Sioux Falls shall stay at home or a place of residence if possible, except to work in a critical infrastructure sector job or to conduct essential activities, both as defined herein.
A “critical infrastructure sector job” is one listed below or in the attachment to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Memorandum on Identification of Essential Critical Workers During COVID-19 Response, updated March 28, 2020, attached hereto as Exhibit A and incorporated herein by reference. The following are “critical infrastructure sector jobs” for purposes of this Ordinance:
• Construction workers who support the construction, operation, inspection, and maintenance of construction sites and construction projects (including housing construction)
• Workers such as plumbers, electricians, exterminators, and other service providers who provide services that are necessary to maintaining the safety, sanitation, construction material sources, and essential operation of construction sites and construction projects
• Professional services, such as legal or accounting services, insurance services, real estate services (including appraisal, home inspection, and title services), and veterinary services, inclusive of support staff.
• Employees of biotech companies
• Employees of financial institutions such as banks, credit unions, and insurance companies For purposes of this Ordinance, homes or places of residence include apartments, hotels, motels, shared rental units, dormitories, shelters, long-term care facilities, and similar facilities where a person may presently reside.

This of course covers a wide range of workers, in fact, I would argue unless you are making toy trains or whirly gigs, you are pretty much an essential worker – few workers will be affected. Amazingly, at my employer, while over half of us are already working from home, we probably fit in 3-4 different categories above, and ONE for sure.

I also find this ‘tif’ between Paul and his Snow Queen a bit interesting, especially when this juicy tidbit just came out today;

The source — who has been at the highest level of Republican politics — said Noem is making such a mess of things that she if she doesn’t land a job with Trump, she may face a strong primary challenge in 2022.

Among those who might take her on? Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, who is frustrated with Noem’s failure to lead during the COVID-19 crisis, when he has asked her to declare a statewide shelter-in-place order.

Another dismal of a failure Sioux Falls Mayor looking to be king of the state, while he has to rely on the city council to bail his ass out with a watered down ordinance that doesn’t take affect (April 24th) until half of the town is already infected. Thanks!

Corona Virus Kristi Noem Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls State Legislature

I support Mayor TenHaken’s ‘Shelter in Place’ order

l3wis 36Comments

I suppose I could rant this is too late, but better late than never. This could have been better controlled if Smithfield’s would have asked for the help of the Feds and the state and city health directors to help control the spread in the plant. If they would have told officials back in March, they may have gotten it under control and they may not have to close. But that hog has already left the pen, and now it is spreading in our community.

I’m utterly baffled and horrified that the state legislature has tied the hands of our city and the governor will not intervene when Paul has asked her to. I would even argue it is a slap in his face not to at least tell him you are working on a solution;

Increasingly exasperated local leaders, public health experts and front-line medical workers begged Noem to intervene Monday with a more aggressive state response.

“A shelter-in-place order is needed now. It is needed today,” said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, whose city is at the center of South Dakota’s outbreak and who has had to improvise with voluntary recommendations in the absence of statewide action.

I found out today that on March 30th, the drunken sailors we call our state legislature tied the city’s hands. This is out of their control, and now it may be another 10 days before any action can be taken. But I hope not.

I would suggest that Paul ignore the legislature and use every legal trick he can to get a shelter in place order put in place by Friday or before. Let the AG sue us later, this is no time to worry about legal repercussions.

I stand with the Mayor and City Council on this, it’s time to defy the Governor’s office and take action. We can handle her crying on Fox about it later while we are all watching safely from home. Paul, show the citizens of Sioux Falls you have it in you – I think you do.

Kristi Noem

Noem sends out campaign fundraiser email on Easter

l3wis 21Comments

Notice at the bottom of the email that this was from her campaign office and not governor’s office. Funny, seems a certain Sioux Falls city councilor was criticized for putting out a robo call on the Saturday before Easter Sunday last year. Hmmm. You would think in the middle of a pandemic in which Noem has handled poorly she wouldn’t be sending out fundraising emails (and using Jesus’ resurrection to boot). I wonder what Jesus would think of that? I’m sure she got his permission.

Corona Virus Kristi Noem Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls

Was the 14 day closure predetermined?

l3wis 17Comments

Like a well played out stage performance, one has to wonder if the 14 day closure was already agreed to?

There seemed to be a lot of confidence yesterday between Noem and TenHaken in sending this supposed letter. The media wondered why there was no representation from Smithfield’s or the Union. They didn’t seemed to concerned about it. Is it because they already talked to them and the letter was simply icing on the cake of this nice little package?

I think the real media, not just some loud mouth blogger, needs to do some digging.

Here are some things that may further back up my theory;

• A letter? When there is a public health crisis, most people pick up the phone and have discussions in real time. I found this letter (that no one knows how it was sent) to be an afterthought. I think there was very serious conversations behind the scenes and I think Noem and TenHaken (mostly Paul) threatened serious repercussions if this wasn’t done, and in the face of both parties looking very bad an agreement was probably made. Smithfield’s looks good for complying without messy legal problems, and Noem and PTH look good because they got them to comply by sending a ‘letter’ with no legal teeth. Both parties win.

• No public discussion was had before the announcement of the letter. The city council was notified only 1 1/2 hours before the Governor’s press conference in an email about this letter.

• Timed press conferences. How odd that they were just a half hour apart and almost timed to the minute with a coordinated well planned out statements.

• What if they would not have complied? Remember how both Noem and TenHaken were very smug about the idea if they would not have complied. It seemed they had no further plans, because they already knew they would probably comply.

• Another suspicious timing is how Smithfield magically complied in 24 hours, on Easter Sunday no less. Just in time for your Easter Ham.

• No representation from the Union or Smithfield’s was present at these press conferences. They didn’t need to be there, the script was probably already written.

Don’t be fooled by this display of supposed leadership, this seemed to be a well played out act. Don’t get me wrong, closing for 14 days (or more) should be done, it should have been done on March 26 when the first case appeared. We should be thankful a deal was cut, even if it is a little late. What we should not be thankful for is all the games being played behind the scenes. Why can’t our elected leaders just do these things in the open? How simple it would have been for Noem and PTH to just say, “We had a conversation with Smithfield’s that if they didn’t close for 14 days there would be legal intervention.” Seems pretty simple to me. But as an elected official said to me today, Noem and TenHaken would not have wanted to piss off their big money donors.

Corona Virus Kristi Noem

Sen. Stan Adelstein’s open letter to Gov. Noem

l3wis 10Comments

Stan had this response today on FB;

Has the Governor answered my open letter.

The answer is NO.

A better question that was raised in a call to me today.

When did the Governor first know about the 80 cases at Smithfield? And even more, why did she not report it on the daily State page — that many of us follow carefully? Surely all of these did not occur in ONE day!

Then a final question is from me. Does Kristi Noem care about the health of South Dakotans? Why were the people of Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties NOT warned of the danger of 80 new cases –

Eighty!! Is she lacking in the knowledge that one case – as widely discussed in the news, TV and radio — that one case usually is spread to 10 people???

Why, indeed was NO ONE warned? What about people from the Hills that have visited Sioux Falls, or even planning to go there, where UNLIKE Rapid City there are numerous restaurants and bars open

The Mayor of Sioux Falls just announced (almost proudly) that his community has 182.2 infections per 100 thousand people.

And, strangely he almost boasted “more than Seattle!”

Why, oh why has he not done what Mayor Steve Allender and our Council have done. After his exclamation it occurred to my ridiculous engineer mind we have less than 8 infections per hundred thousand.

In fact last night, looking at the US Census county population count, Lincoln and Minnehaha have a population of 192 thousand to Pennington’s 112 thousand. 2.24 times more, that means at 10 infection spreaders 174 more chances of someone getting pain, suffering or death.

And this was hidden?? For how long?? And WHY for G-d”s name????

Some surprise holiday gift from the Mayor and Governor, I suppose.

Stan Adelstein – finish my third week in isolation in Keystone yesterday.

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