NOON TODAY • Reistroffer for Council Kickoff at El Riad Shrine Mosque
l3wis Join Emmett for food and refreshments as he kicks off his candidacy for Sioux Falls Central District council race.
l3wis
Is Candidate TenHaken using city resources to promote his race?
While there is certainly nothing wrong with having the mayor’s column on the city website, as a candidate he really should be refraining from posting a column until after the election. State law;
• SDCL 12-27-20. Expenditure of public funds to influence election outcome prohibited. The
state, an agency of the state, and the governing body of any county, municipality, or other
political subdivision of the state may not expend or permit the expenditure of public funds for the
purpose of influencing the nomination or election of any candidate, or for the petitioning of a ballot question on the ballot or the adoption or defeat of any ballot question. This section may
not be construed to limit the freedom of speech of any officer or employee of the state or any
political subdivision who is speaking in the officer’s or employee’s personal capacity. This
section does not prohibit the state, its agencies, or the governing body of any political
subdivision of the state from presenting factual information solely for the purpose of educating
the voters on a ballot question.
Paul says this in the opening line of the column;
As our community grows and new residents call Sioux Falls home, our community’s cultures, traditions, and experiences also continue to become even more vibrant.
That is an editorialized opinion of the mayor. If the column just presented statistics on diversity, I would say it was okay. Doesn’t it seem odd that all of sudden after almost 4 years on the job he seems to be embracing diversity when in 2020 when the Covid outbreak at Smithfield occurred he attributed it to poor hygiene of immigrants.
It doesn’t surprise me he continues to pretend he did something over the past 4 years besides socialist handouts to welfare developers and failed bunker ramps. In less than 40 days from an election he is suddenly concerned about diversity, affordable housing, childcare, employee bonuses and bringing in high tech cyber jobs. I would have to agree with Poops when he says he is NOT political, he has certainly shown us that during his first term he has failed as a politician.
But Poops isn’t the only one walking the fine line. Central District Candidate Jim Burzynski had a petition signing event either presented or sponsored by the All Saints Neighborhood Association. Neighborhood associations that are registered with the city and receive taxpayer grants cannot help or promote candidates. They can have forums, but all candidates must be invited.
Sioux Falls Catholic Schools attack teacher’s 1st Amendment rights
I will have to commend the local media who have decided to cover this very important story. But let’s make no mistake, while the story is partially about gay rights, equality, employee rights, religious freedom and quite honestly, reality, the bigger story is that this teacher’s 1st Amendment rights were spit on by her employer;
“It was very evident that everybody that I talked to at the school cared a lot about their students, regardless of their orientation,” Hickman said. “But it seemed that once I put something on my personal social media, that’s when it became a problem.”
Employee contracts aside and the Catholic’s church stance on homosexuality, this is about a bigger issue; the rights of an American citizen to express their view on any topic outside of work without being pressured by their employer to STFU!
Three months later, she says she was called into a meeting at O’Gorman and was asked to take the post down.
“I left that meeting stating I don’t feel comfortable doing anything about the post when I don’t understand why you’re asking me to do this,” Hickman said.
She then received a letter from Kyle Groos, President of the Bishop O’Gorman schools. It says Hickman’s post ‘promotes beliefs about lifestyle and sexuality that are inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.’
This is close to my heart, being politically involved as I am, many employers I have had struggled with my private political life. I had to remind them that my private life and my political beliefs were none of their business, and I must have been successful, because none of them terminated me because of it, some actually defended me, and I only quit one job because of it (lead usher at the Washington Pavilion).
NO EMPLOYER can fire an employee for their personal beliefs outside of work. It is a blatant violation of their 1st Amendment rights. And while Ukrainians fight for their sovereignty I am reminded that we live in an incredible FREE nation and no one can take that away from us. Bravo to Rachel Hickman for taking a stance. Our rights as free citizens should never be questioned or punished, that is called fascism, because last I checked we live in a free country and the SFCS should be ashamed and admonished, especially an institution that is educating young adults.
Sioux Falls Mayoral Candidate Zokaites gets cut off by Council Dictator Kiley
Besides the fact that the city council folded like a wet paper bag when it came to poorly researched and negotiated employee retention bonuses (or was it about inflation? Proving the absurdity of city employee vote bribes? Or trying to humiliate Brekke, you know, the councilor they are unethically hosting fundraisers for her opponent) there was some other fireworks at last night’s meeting.
During public input Mr. Science and All around Know-it-All Councilor Ricky Lee Kiley cut off David Zokaites because of his presentation about allowing Mayor Poops a Freebie 2-hour interview on KELO AM. Ironically, I saw the presentation before the meeting (posted below), and all David was going to say is that KELO and Poops did nothing wrong and it was permissible by the FCC. Yup, he was going to defend the Mayor, at least on the law, but NOT the ethics.
Kiley was within his rights to ask David to stop the presentation and David did the right thing by ending it. As a candidate for office you are NOT allowed to talk about that candidacy at the podium during public input, and that is where David crossed a line . . . kind of. I’m just curious why the council’s COS and City Clerk did not catch the violation when they pre-approved David’s PPT before the meeting?
Ironically, Poops violates ethical standards of running for office almost daily. From using insider information on concerts at the Denty, to tweeting candidate commercials while running a meeting, posting endorsements (that are missing a PAID FOR STAMP) on his supposed personal FB page and using most media interviews to promote his candidacy while telling everyone he is not a politician (but plays one on TV).
While Kiley was right that David was in the wrong, I’m just wondering when Poops will start following the same campaign ethical standards? Not in our lifetime.
CITY OF SIOUX FALLS HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT HIRES A COUNSELING AGENCY THAT EMPLOYEES A CONVICTED FEDERAL CRIMINAL
The real fun stuff was at the beginning of the meeting when councilor Starr asked why the city is hiring Key Solutions whose director/counselor recently got charged with Federal crimes;
Tami Haug-Davis, 64, of Sioux Falls, was ordered to pay $15,000 restitution, serve one year of probation and serve 40 hours of community service for making a materially false statement regarding minutes of board meetings during a federal investigation of the Missouri Valley Crisis Center.
Our director of HR, Bill Dah’Toole said to the council last night, they got reassurance that she wouldn’t do bad things anymore. You know, like when we picked Lamont to complete the bunker ramp. Starr had made them aware in advance of her record, and instead trying to find another counseling agency, they chose to double-down on their very stupid decision, and 6 of the 8 councilors agreed . . . of course they would, because that is the true definition of absurdity. Starr and Brekke voted NO. Erickson of course phoned in her VOTE since she is in Pierre lobbying at her other job. Must be nice to double-dip and have a council gig as a side hustle. I can’t even remember the last time I have seen her in person at a council meeting?
LIGHTS OUT!
But my favorite part at the meeting last night was when someone leaned against the light switches and turned off the lights in the Chamber. I’m sure they were all thinking cyber attack.
Dakotanews has a peculiar view on Investigative Journalism
I was a little puzzled by this story they posted yesterday;
The I-Team has learned that the city of Sioux Falls has hired an outside attorney to represent the city in a lawsuit against the Village River Group.
I am assuming the I-Team means investigative team. Besides the fact that I posted about this on January 18, it wasn’t some secret since it was on the public agenda at the January 18 meeting in the consent agenda in which Councilor Starr pulled and asked the city finance director and city attorney where the money was coming from.
They both kind of fibbed a bit (the real story here).
Still wondering why it took supposed investigative journalists 6 weeks to figure something out that was posted on a public agenda?