UPDATE: I found Cole’s boilerplate website. After the 5 minute read, I’m really not sure how Cole would be much different than what we currently have on the council. She does belong to a book club though.
As someone joked to me, “Don’t you know we need someone from both hospitals on the council now since we have a banker from Sioux Falls #1 Bank.”
Unfortunately, their joke will probably come true.
This week a Specialist Doctor in Sioux Falls announced they are running for city council and while I could comment on several fronts why they don’t qualify, I am mostly concerned about their time constraints. As I have been told by peeps in the medical field, they probably can rearrange their schedule to make it work, but what’s the point? This person literally has NO political foot print. I can’t even find if they have served on ANY non-profit or semi-governmental boards in the community.
It is however pretty obvious why someone with such a busy schedule was ‘picked’ by the golden team, because they would make an excellent rubber stamper who would never question the mayor’s agenda and quickly move stuff along and get home in time for bedtime stories.
While I agree we need all walks of life serving on the council, I would much more prefer to see more piano teachers than specialist doctors. Representation of the common Jill and Joe on the council has almost disappeared and that is because of the enormous amount of money poured into these races by the SD GOP and Developers in this community and the Rah Rah Taupeville Churchies. It would be impossible to compete with the kind of money this candidate will raise. The only hope is the incumbent in the race (Janet Brekke) can ride into a second term based on her incumbency and solid voting record of mostly supporting the council agenda over the past 4 years while fighting for more transparency, legal clarity and long term planning.
While I commend this person for wanting to serve, I question if they even have seen a council meeting or know how city government works and that is exactly who the cruise controllers want.