I will be straightforward about this, we need to pack Carnegie Hall next Tuesday night at 7 PM for the vote on the snowgate election resolution. Whether you agree with snowgates or not is not the matter at hand, this is about doing the right thing and calling the election ASAP. That would be in the Spring of 2013. Let the public vote on the matter. I know that only 3 councilors have expressed that they support the Spring Election (Staggers, Jamison, Anderson) and 2 councilors yesterday basically said that they oppose the Spring 2013 election (Entenman, Aguliar).
This is what I am asking from you;
1) Show up next Tuesday, and if you are too shy to testify, that is okay, your presence alone will help the cause. But I do encourage you to talk.
2) Call these 4 councilors and encourage them to vote for the Spring 2013 election. Explain to them that this is about ‘doing the right thing’ and honoring the will of the petition signers. Above and beyond anything else, that is the REAL job of our elected officials, doing what is right for the public good.
Councilor Dean Karsky • 351-8571
Councilor Jim Entenman • 334-2721
Councilor Michelle Erpenbach • 321-0793
Councilor Sue Aguilar • 334-8245
I would also like to remind any of the councilors that may still be on the fence about when to have the election that over 7,000 signatures were verified. That is WELL OVERÂ some of them got in votes to be elected to council;
STAGGERS: 6,793 (At-Large)
JAMISON: 1,406
ANDERSON: 1,399
KARSKY: 1,552
ENTENMAN: 16,609 (At-Large)
AGULIAR: 4,058
ERPENBACH: 2,466
ROLFING: 11,269 (At-Large)
Councilors who vote no will have to explain why they oppose democracy now and if/when they run for reelection. There’s an ethics action here that the 7,000 class could bring.
There has been discussion of recalling councilors that vote against this election.
SF is the only city in SD that doesn’t have annual elections (because of home rule). State law on initiatives says at the next annual election. I don’t think legislators pictured cities waiting 17 months to respond to citizen petitions.
Yeah, home rule is fabulous. Hey, PL, I think that Anon just wrote your intro . . .
Since the days of Governor Lee, the 1890’s, the Initiative and Referendum have been scorned by the people in power when they could not get their way.
When the people in power lose an I/R election the people are stupid peons. When the people get sucked into their scheme, the people are farsighted and team players in their version of the future.
How this plays into the snowgate issue is summed up this way: we the people in order to have a more perfect union are stupid peons without the ability to see all the facts because we are selfish. We only want and never think about all the options and downfalls our careful / thinking officials are considering. These officials don’t think we should be part of the process. They have ‘experts’ to guide them through the process, so what good is citizen participation?
We the people should never question their motives or thinking processes. We ‘elected’ them to the grand office they hold so we would never have to worry about these ‘things’.
The talk about ‘prudence’ on this issue just makes me want to puke. What ‘prudence’ did we practice on Phillips to the Falls, The River Greenway, the Sanford Sports Complex, the countless corporate welfare TIF’s, the Events Center. ZERO Prudence. Besides, as Jamison said during the informational, this isn’t about snowgates, this is about having an election.
Good point Anonymous. Info I didn’t know. L3wis brings up prudence. It’d much deeper. Germans didn’t know there about extermination camps till after the war was lost. Huether’s government is similar to Hitler’s. We don’t know what’s going on until we lose. Sioux Falls is it’s own sovereign nation because of Home Rule. Allied forces from the state and fed will someday step in and rescue us. However, it’s our fault because we were brain dead & passive. Well have to handle the rebuilding & debt.
A city councilman informed me the special election held for the Events Center laid out all the facts necessary to allow the public to approve the entire package the mayor presented. We apparently approved the EC with all facts on the table. We the people also approved the spending of whatever funds the mayor proposed spending.
I must have missed the issues we were voting on. Could someone remind me what the exact EC vote was? It seems to me it was being used as a popularity contest and not an actual ‘package’ we were voting for.
Darn smartphone. Changes spelling & context. In a republic, the branches of government make decisions. In a democracy, the citizens vote on policy presented by leadership. In a dictatorship, one person makes all decisions & directs lots of public money into his column. Whether or not the council votes for an election, Huether can prevent one. Councilors can be recalled. Per ordinances, there’s no way to recall a mayor. We’re a dictatorship.
The events center vote was rigged. One man took the votes home overnight. Next morning, the EC passed. It was rigged.
Just got word that Aguilar is keeping an ‘open mind’ about the vote and hasn’t made up her mind yet. I left a VM for Erpenbach, and I know a couple of other people have to. I encourage people to post comments about any convos they have with councilors.
Lewis, are you the Mayor’s new communications specialist?
LOL. I thought about applying for the job, just to see if I get an interview 🙂
Pathloss, I think you meant brain dead and progressive. The good Mayor ran on being progressive, I guess his idea of progression is different than the definition I found: “making progress toward better conditions; employing or advocating more enlightened or liberal ideas, new or experimental methods, etc.: a progressive community.”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/progressive\
Note the “better conditions, liberal ideas, and new/experimental methods”, heck…note the whole definition. This guy doesn’t fit the bill, unless we are talking pickleball/tennis, and trying to ban beer licenses to evil tattoo shops (cuz they’re the work of the devil)…now that’s real progress!
Good job SF, you picked a winner! And by saying SF, I know/hope 99% of the posters here didn’t vote for this current dillhole. And by dillhole, I mean our current mayor. When do we vote again?
NPO, “When do we vote again?” Not soon enough…
you said dill hole . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI89Sj9lybQ