2020

Complaints against Rapid City Councilor violates her 1st Amendment Rights

Once again, Attorney Tornow is diddling where he shouldn’t be diddling;

Complaints were submitted to the Rapid City city attorney regarding common council president Laura Armstrong’s involvement in the Facebook page, Caring Businesses of Rapid City, saying her actions violate city code.

“Code of conduct two says Rapid City officials, like council members, are to refrain at all times from discrimination or the dispensation of special privileges,” said Tornow. “I don’t know how you can have any more clear violation.”

First off, if this is a violation of city code (I don’t think it is) the complainers don’t have much of a legal leg to stand on. As an elected official your 1st Amendment rights are NOT stripped from you once you become elected. Sure, some would question ethics in this matter (though I would argue she is acting ethically by supporting a mask mandate that actually helps local businesses stay open) acting unethically is NOT illegal and as we saw in Sioux Falls, you can hardly be removed from office for it.

But more importantly she has a right granted from the highest law in the country to freedom of speech and if I was her I would counter sue these clowns for making a fuss over it.

It seems though the Rapid City, City Attorney did the right thing;

After the group submitted their complaints, a media outlet requested copies. Joel Landeen, the city’s attorney, says those were provided, much like complaints released in the past.

“If we choose not to disclose, or say we cannot comment on that because it’s confidential, then it makes it look like we’re trying to hide something or are not being transparent,” said Landeen. “Their argument is that the complaints should have remained confidential. I would point out that the last two complaints against aldermen Lisa Modrick and Jerry Right. The media became aware of both of those complaints almost simultaneously with them being filed.”

Tornow says the release of the complaints violates city process and the complaints included private information such as age and address. But Landeen says no one was required to share that information as part of the complaint process.

“I don’t think that the city did anything wrong in releasing the complaints,” said Landeen. “You have to put your name on a letter to the editor, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to have to put your name on a complaint. As far as some of the other information, I can understand why people are concerned but I would point out that the form that contained all this information, those were not on city forms.”

Notice the last part of the last sentence, if you file a complaint to a government body on a piece of toilet paper, guess what, that just might appear in the media. When you are so stupid to complain about an elected official who is practicing their 1st Amendment rights to keep a community safe and economically secure, and file that complaint on unofficial forms, guess what, you spill gravy on your tie.

I have often argued that code enforcement complaints in Sioux Falls filed by residents (non-city employees) should be made public to the person the complaint is being filed against. I guarantee more transparency in code enforcement would make the problem disappear quite quickly. If you have a problem with your neighbor, bake them a pie and go have a chat. If you have a problem with your city councilor, buy them a cup of coffee and go have a chat.

I applaud the Rapid City, City Attorney on how he is handling the complaints. It’s going to be fun to watch this explode in the anti-maskers faces. They wouldn’t know the constitution or civil liberty rights if it hit them over the head with a baseball bat.

But a word of advice to the city councilor involved in this Trumpist-Noem fiasco, STAY OFF OF FACEBOOK!

City of Sioux Falls to hire Police Recruiter

The city is going to add a person to the already crowded HR department and pay them between $63-70K a year to read police officer applications. Since the rules have changed and the city can now train it’s own officers it makes sense to have someone who can recruit and retain officers.

But I have some concerns. First the obvious, while most jobs listed on employment sites for the city pay around $12 an hour (seasonal part-time) I’m curious about paying someone this much especially when starting pay for officers is around $50K a year. Secondly, while the HR department should have someone specializing in this, I hardly think this will take up 40 hours a week. They could easily have another person in the office handling this. Also remember this person is essentially a screener, I’m sure applicants that make it thru the process will be interviewed by the Police Chief before being hired. It would probably be cheaper to hire a consultant to find applicants than having a full-time person. This is how the city has operated for a very long time, throwing pennies to the union minions and big time salaries to mid-management to work from their basements.

The city does need to recruit officers, but seriously, use the overpaid staff you already have in HR.

More transparency for Sioux Falls in 2021

Hopefully we will have Covid under control or at least manageable early summer. I have a feeling once the vaccine is available to the general public we will turn the corner very quickly. I also look forward to hopefully having a full season of The Levitt concert series. Heck even a half-season would be fine with me.

But my biggest concern in the city is the continuing decline of transparency in government. This is what happens when you put partisan hack authoritarian fascists in charge of local NON-PARTISAN government. Power goes straight to their heads and the way to control that power is thru secrecy. I also think these very un-democratic measures by our local government and state government may quell a bit when the orange menace in Washington is finally shown the door. The next 30 days is going to be the scariest and most embarrassing Trump circus we have ever seen.

I could certainly go on a very long rant about Mayor TenHaken’s lack of leadership and absence of intelligent decisions but where I really get worked up is his deep hatred for transparency. I really think his hatred comes from his years of being a partisan hack in the political advertising world. Keeping strategies from your opponent is essential to beating them. Unfortunately, Paul has carried that philosophy over to actually serving in office. He is also very keen on trying to punish his political enemies and it shows in his extreme paranoia he uses to justify his secrecy. I know he won’t make these changes on his own, so we may need to force his hand on a couple of these things in 2021;

• Hold weekly mayoral press conferences. This could be something as simple as 15 minutes of presentation and 15 minutes of questions from the press, at NOON on Tuesdays, live stream on YouTube and FB and replay in YouTube. This could be an essential step towards transparency. It would also require the mayor to educate himself with what is really going on in the city.

• Settle the Bunker Ramp lawsuit. This fiasco has been going on for far too long, this needs to be mopped up so we can try to promote a new development on the site. The bunker ramp is a prime example of the ultimate failure of local government on so many levels. City employees, dubious developers, two mayors and around 10 city councilors royally screwed us on this deal. I would really like to see a formal apology sometime in 2021 from those involved in this fraud against taxpayers. But like most authoritarians who love secrets, no one will ever come clean on this. The denial so pathetic I have often said everyone involved should either resign or be fired.

• Revoke Sioux Steel’s TIF. We still have no idea where this project is going, and since it has already been delayed for a year, it is time to revoke the original TIF. If they still do the project, it is obvious it will change from the original intentions, which means they must apply for a new, down scaled TIF, or better yet, NO TIF at all. This is another example of the highly secretive planning department that works quietly behind the scenes with developers to ‘recommend approval’ (ironically, something else that needs to be revoked in 2021 also).

• Overhaul the TIF program. As I have suggested for over a decade, the TIF program should be moved into the community development office and short term property tax rebates should be given to individual home owners and small rental properties for cleaning up properties in Central and Proper Sioux Falls. I actually believe cleaning up the core of our city (private properties, sidewalks, streets, curb and gutter, street lights, etc.) would have an enormous impact on the local economy. In fact studies done across the nation have shown that cleaning up cities from the inside out and creating strong density in the core boosts the local economy. Instead of dumping millions into new infrastructure in cornfields in Lincoln county we need to concentrate on cleaning up our core.

• Eliminate SIRE for good. This POS City Council online agenda reference service has been broken for as long as I can remember. If the software was an employee it would have been fired 15 years ago. The city continues to dump money into this joke of a system, and with all the technological advances you would think the city would have replaced it by now. But see, the city likes it this way, it gives them an excuse for hiding agenda items from us. The city’s legal department has also been titling agenda items with no direct references to what the agenda item is about. This is also an attack on open government and needs to end.

• City Council Ethics rules overhaul. There are no clear ethics rules. Every time the council gets tried for a possible violation, they slither out of it by claiming it is too vague or broad. And even if there is proof a councilor or mayor violated ethics, as did Neitzert and TenHaken, the majority of the council dismisses the charges. The ethics board isn’t much better, often claiming ‘law’ permits councilors to violate ethics, though they have nothing to do with each other. I also have the right to say ‘F’ck’ a thousand times a day in public, but ethically know that is probably not such a good idea.

• Public input needs to be moved to the beginning of the meetings again. Of course we will probably have to wait until the next municipal election in 2 years to overturn this moronic and authoritarian move, but in the meantime we plan to have a little fun with the move and some possible 1st Amendment ‘challenges’.

• A major overhaul of the Home Rule Charter. This was attempted with ‘Triple Check the Charter’ but the Rat Finks prevailed. Next time around we will take on a new approach and when the smoke clears, they will wish the last attempt passed because the 2nd attempt isn’t going to be pretty and if it passes, there won’t be a lot of people standing.

We need to return transparency to City Hall in 2021 and not only get it back, but make it more open than it has ever been and put the changes permanently in place. Open government not only saves taxpayers money but makes government more efficient. Also, a well informed public functions better and gets more involved with important decisions in our community.

Here’s hoping for a better 2021, one with more information and less viruses and orange people.

My Covid Experience

Before I tell you about what I went thru (which isn’t that great of a story) I want to make it clear that I still support mask mandates (when shopping in public) and social distancing if eating out. I also think that the bars should limit patrons, because right now, it seems like they are a free for all. I also support vaccinations as soon as we can all get them. While my case wasn’t serious enough to hospitalize me and cause any long term effects (that I know of) it is very serious for people with underlying health conditions and other issues such as lack of health coverage, food security or employment.

While my illness probably wasn’t as dire as it is for other people, I can tell you one thing IT IS NOT THE SEASONAL FLU. All symptoms are much worse, and it lasts much longer. I was sick for around two weeks. Bad dry cough and headaches were my main symptoms. I also lost my smell and taste, and still only have partial back at this point. It is also hard to sleep when you have Covid due to chills or sweats, weird dreams and coughing/breathing. Like I said, I was fortunate to not have any serious breathing or lung issues, but I will say the worst part of the illness is the horrible headaches that last for days. I also did not receive any prescriptions. I basically battled through the symptoms with nasal spray, cough drops, lots of hydration, rest and Ibuprofen.

I was fortunate to have insurance and an employer who covered test costs and wages while I was sick.

The one thing I learned is that Covid could have been manageable not just nationally, or statewide but locally. We probably would not have had to close down a lot of things if we would have implemented a long term plan back in March so that businesses could stay open. I don’t know where I got the illness, but likely at work, but I do go out shopping so who really knows. The infection rate is so high right now I could have gotten it anywhere. I firmly believe that if Smithfield’s would not have had that large outbreak, we would have contained it pretty easily in Sioux Falls.

The most frustrating part about the pandemic is how we got to this place. If the Trump administration would have followed the pandemic plans left by the Obama administration and not disbanded the office we may have been in better shape than we are today. It also doesn’t help our country and state are led by lying idiots.

A part of me is relieved I got it once to experience and at least have short term immunity, hopefully long enough until I can get a vaccination. But I am also not naïve, I do realize I still am vulnerable and will practice all the same precautions I did before I got it. The way I look at it, I have been working in the office since it’s inception and it took this long to contract the virus, so the precautions I was taking at home, shopping or at work seemed to have mitigated it quite well and are a testament to mitigation efforts working if you apply them early and often as I did at work and while out in the community.

There is one important lesson I have learned from Covid, you have to take matters in your own hands if you want to keep yourself safe. No one else is going to save you. Leaders across the nation and locally have this enormous unwillingness to do anything, they call if ‘freedom’ I call it ‘incompetence’. This incompetence doesn’t have much affect on someone like me who has managed to stay safe, stay working and a roof over my head, but it does affect the vulnerable in the community. Leadership is not something I need either, I can easily make my way out of a wet paper bag. But government is not only for those who can fend for themselves, it is for those who need that extra help, that is what makes our Republic so remarkable, we help those in need and less fortunate. During this pandemic, we have failed these folks. While I count my blessings everyday since this started, even when I was in the middle of the floor coughing my brains out, I still felt awful for those who were not going to get thru this. Our supposed leaders failed us on this pandemic, and we all should be truly ashamed.

It is time for the City of Sioux Falls to stream meetings on YouTube

What has often baffled me about Mayor TenHaken being this supposed tech geek is that he hasn’t embraced the simplest of technologies, that are ironically free. Cities across the nation have been using the FREE service of YouTube to stream their meetings (and keep a FREE record of them) for a long time. The South Dakota cities of Rapid City and Mitchell use the service. Locally the Minnehaha County Commission and the Sioux Falls School Board use it. Even the City of Sioux Falls has it’s own channel but only posts a handful of CityLink propaganda shows and a few press conferences preferring to stream only on Facebook (which you have to subscribe to).

Besides the fact that there is NO subscription required to watch the meetings on YouTube and the service is essentially FREE to the city and taxpayers, it helps with access and transparency. Also, increasingly, the service the city uses to stream official city council meetings, SIRE, is failing us, it has for over a decade and it is getting worse and worse. Last week only half of the informational was streamed live in SIRE and there was another meeting where only audio was working (I think it was the planning meeting).

Is YouTube perfect? No. But it has a good track record and seems to work just fine for thousands of other local governments across the country.

I told someone that the city has probably chosen to NOT use YouTube streaming because they can’t waste money on it and it wasn’t one of their new fangled ideas. In fact the former mayor had the media department purge hundreds of YouTube videos on their site before he left office. To this day we don’t know why.

But the real reason this mayor and his administration refuse to do this is because THEY HATE TRANSPARENCY AND OPEN GOVERNMENT.

Bottling up all that Hate Paul isn’t good for you . . . or us.