When Dr. Staggers was running against Huether, my union friends would bust my balls about Kermit being a Republican against organized labor. While I can’t speak for Kermit’s opinion on labor, it stung a bit. While I have never been a part of a union, I supported them, and understand their power.
The Unions backed Huether, mostly because he called himself a Democrat. Which I never understood. Maybe he was pro-choice or had a homosexual friend? Not sure. But it seemed odd coming from a guy who marketed the WORST credit card to ever exist.
Fast Forward tonight, where our mayor, the newly crowned Trump supporter and Independent had to break a tie vote retro-paying the police and city employee unions until January 1st, which may have cost taxpayer’s under $100K.
But one of the most troubling pieces of the argument to not pay police more tonight came from councilor Erpenbach, who works for a well funded nursing home. She stated that pretty much times are tough, and raises don’t come easy.
I will agree with Erpenbach on that statement alone, but we are not talking about people who write newsletters, we are talking about people who are fighting crime, and guess what, it is increasing in Sioux Falls at a dramatic rate.
I will make this argument simple. While are city is seeing massive growth in development, we are NOT seeing that trickle down to the masses.
But let’s simply this. When the Fire Department shows up to put out a fire, and the flames are increasing, they don’t throw gasoline on the fire, they throw more water. So if we think we are going to get our crime rates to go down by not giving decent raises to our police force, we might as well just being buying guns for the criminals.
There are tough times for the city because of Huether’s uncontrolled spending. We needed an Events Center, Tennis, Indoor Pool, Admin Building, etc. We didn’t need them all at once. An 80 million debt became a half billion dollar default. Now, he’s looking under the sofa cushions and raiding the Penney jar. Raising parking fees and not paying police are insignificant cuts and counterproductive. How about eliminating the city TV channel and ‘Listen and Learn’? Something most do not know is the city sponsors commercial (not public) TV shows. See the credits every day. Most notably, every night at 7 on FOX. We want taxes used for public service, not propaganda or sitcoms.
In 14 months we’ll decriminalize the mayors office. I’d like to see Strong Mayor Charter replaced with democracy. Veto that.
I’m not in favor of the Jan 1 date but I would have supported a immediate raise rather than the March 13 date
It’s hard for the Police to put up a convincing argument for a larger raise when you have another city union saying that a 1.5% increase is acceptable.
Poorly coordinated effort and one union threw the other under the bus.
As far as the retropay or the date for the raise to go into effect. I’m sure no one is surprised. Huether’s vindictiveness shows through again. If he had a chance to ‘get even’ with the police for going to the arbitrator and the media, you know he was going to.
The money was in the budget. Instead of worrying about precedent, the Mayor and 4 Councilors should be worried about the appearance of retaliation in a labor dispute.
Mike won’t win a state wide office. He’s too big a douche to win anywhere West of Sioux Falls. The big threat is when he runs for Mayor of Sioux Falls again. Personally, I will contribute to just about anyone running against him. Hopefully his true nature has been revealed and the citizens of Sioux Falls will realize he’s nothing more than a fee hike and & spend politician.
Ljl, the earliest the resolution can legally take effect is March 13 because of the legal posting process. The mayor could still veto if he wanted… He could be just that kind of idiot?
Huether is completely mesmarized by the way trump won as a populist candidate. He’s running for governor as a anti establishment candidate counting heavily on the argus to plaster his name and mug on the front page for free advertising. What he has forgotten in his formula is just how ridiculous his new hero, trump, really is. trump will be impeached long before huether takes his populist run. Good luck mayor….you will NEVER make it.
Commander he does not support the working man I am sorry I voted for him the first time,He represents the big boys not hthe worker,
What the city always forgets to mention in regard to the fireman contract is that they gave part of their membership, the drivers, and additional increase of around 1.5% along with the 1.5% COLA. Read their contract that was posted when it got approved. Additionally, the City additionally gave into them in regard to some major non economic issues that had a large amount of value to them.
The city will never bring this up because then it does not paint the picture they are trying to against other employees in the city. SFFR should be pissed as they were always the puppet used by the city and the council as to them agreeing to a contract and the other city employees not.
It was nice to see some on the council have some gall to stand up to MMM. It is embarrassing to see the other 3 just be the puppet of him as well.
This was not an anti labor vote by any matter, this was a straight anti-police vote by the mayor and the other council members that did not vote to back pay the police. The obvious disdain for law enforcement from MMM and his 3 puppets is sad. It is a sad sad place in this city when the mayor and certain members of the council (Kiley, Erphenbach, and Rolfing) are willing to sell out their police department and the quality of safety in their community for a building project that was never needed.
Perhaps the police and city workers could have gotten an additional 3% if they would have rented out space on their uniforms for the mayor to put his name.
If the retro pay would have been close to a million, I might have seen the reluctance, but by best estimates it was under 50K. That isn’t prudence, that’s vindictiveness and ugly.
It would be interesting to see the turnover rate for the past several years of officers who have left the department (before their retirement age).
Oh well, I’ve always been shocked by his child like caricature. And now having Trump in the house is like dynamite! We’re all walking on it…..!
I would not put it past the mayor to be petty, but I would not given the back pay as it would set a precedent that there is no urgency to make a deal. The next contract negation could have been much longer if they were given the back pay.
I understand March 13 is the legal date but they did not have to set retroactive to Jan 1. Just set it to the contract approval date of Feb 14. That would have been a reasonable compromise.