Author Archives: L3wis

One of the reasons I don’t pay much attention to other blogs or even local news is because they either just let great stories go or don’t report about stuff for months after it happened.

I pointed out in February that Hansen was likely lining his pockets from the anti-choice movement. Well Pitty finally woke up and said something about it. As for the rest of the media, they will likely not say anything.

I remember recently a person called me frantically to tell me about a city controversy and I replied, “That happened 2 years ago.” And they were like, “Where was the news reports, besides your blog?” I replied, “We have local news? Could have fooled me.”

Also the local yocals tend to stay away from any story that could be perceived as controversial. Well guess what? Government corruption is controversial, but it doesn’t get fixed by covering it up.

For example, one reporter decided to just blow off that councilor Marshall Selberg was illegally living out of his district. Another reporter decided to alert the School District about perjured campaign forms instead of doing an investigative story about how it happened.

Jodi recently wrote about the disengagement of folks. She touched on many things I agree with and some things I disagree with. I think one of the main reasons people have become disengaged so quickly over the past few years is 1) The lack of quality journalism and journalists in our community. 2) Folks are working their asses off trying to keep up with inflation. Peeps don’t have time to read the news when they are slaving away.

This past Saturday I went to Czech Days with my Mother. It had been a few years since I went, so I needed to get refilled on gravy.

We visited the Blachnik Museum which sits in the backyard of my Mom’s cousin’s place. My Mom’s parents were Blachniks. I found out from my Mom’s cousin that the Blachniks are likely of German heritage and NOT Czech. When borders were moving quite a bit back in the day, they think the Blachniks left Germany on the border of Czechoslavakia at that time and embraced the new culture. My grandma was originally a Blaha, which is ALL Czech.

Below is inside the museum. My grandpa’s uncle Emil built it. And it is fascinating.

The cousin also filled me in on Bob Blachnik, my Grandpa’s nephew. Bob was a very well known architect in this area and worked for Spitznagel remotely in the late 50’s and early 60’s (he lived in California and would ship his drawings back.)

As you can see from his portfolio he designed many well known structures in Sioux Falls and across the country;

Blachnik illustrated buildings that we are familiar with on campus, including the ID Weeks Library and the Fine Arts building. Blachnik also designed other buildings around Southeastern South Dakota: apartments, other college campus buildings, public schools, hospitals, religious buildings, office buildings, and shopping centers – even the visitor’s center at Mt. Rushmore – all these first came to life through his hand-drawn illustrations and watercolors.

As you can see from his portfolio he did a ton of stuff. KELO TV building, McKennan Hospital, YMCA, Eastway Bowl, Mount Rushmore visitor center. He also helped design the Midland National Life building downtown and the Arena. Too bad my cousin Bob wasn’t around to design the Denty. Maybe would have went with a better siding.

I had learned about cousin Bob when I was a kid (he died in 1988) but kind of forgot about all the buildings he designed in Sioux Falls. If I can track down his actual building resume and portfolio it would be fun to go see what the buildings look like today. KELO hasn’t changed much at all.

Good to know . . . surprised that Hanson was the last one to touch this, thought maybe Poops, who loves to play word games with titles didn’t change it.

I also love hearing slip ups by councilors during live meetings. Last week during an informational a certain councilor asked a director ‘Whose throat to choke? As the mayor always likes to say.’ HMMM, seems like very strange hyperbole Mr. Mayor. Better be careful with your WORDS, wouldn’t want people to think you are making a threat.

In politics: Nationally (kind of): In 2023 the Legislature allocated $383 million for a new prison. In October,  the Department of Corrections designated Lincoln County as the site for the new prison and transferred land it owned to the South Dakota Department of Corrections for that purpose. The location is six miles northwest of Canton, SD and maybe 6 or 7 miles south of the growing Sioux Falls suburban town of Harrisburg. Despite their strong Republican leanings and support for the GOP’s  past “Law and Order” stance, landowners in the area are very upset. They contend our Republican Governor and the Republican dominated Legislature in Pierre will not listen to them and ignore local zoning regulations. Lincoln County Landowners filed suit seeking compliance. A hearing was held in January of 2024 but the Court hasn’t ruled yet. In the meantime the Department of Corrections has stated it is not considering a second site. 

I think this conundrum could be solved if the Department of Corrections decided to name the new prison the “President Donald J. Trump Memorial Prison”. We all know how much Trump adores placing his name on monolithic buildings and, as strong Trump supporters who invariably conform to whatever he desires, the mainly Republican residents in Lincoln County will most likely reconcile their opposition to the new prison and be honored to have a prison named after the “Donald” as a neighbor. 

This is such a simple solution to the current conundrum that I think we should start a petition to present to the Governor and others showing the Public’s support for it. Let’s discuss whether or not Drinking Liberally should lead the petition drive tonight. 

 In Politics: South Dakota. The Democratic Party (SDDP) will hold its Biennial State Convention in Oacoma this weekend. Besides constructing a Political Platform, the other essential items of business are choosing a candidate to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and selecting the National Committeeman and the National Committeewoman for the Party.  No one has announced their candidacy for the PUC as of this writing .  Deb Knecht (Brown County) and Dennis Olsen (Beadle County) currently hold the National Committeeman and woman positions and both have announced they will seek reelection. Deb Knecht is currently unopposed but I have heard that Tom Cool (Sioux Falls) will challenge Dennis Olsen. These positions require expensive travel to national Democratic meetings but despite that, it would be good to see some new blood. Deb has been in her position for a long time and (IMHO) Dennis shows more concern for Beadle County matters than state and national issues. It would be good to have at least one of these two positions held by someone from outside the James River Valley.

I hope the SDDP ends their “Happy Talk” and addresses the continuing decline in Democratic voter registration in South Dakota both relative to Republican voter registration and in terms of absolute numbers. Democratic voter registration currently stands at 143,903 or 23.8% of the electorate compared to Republican registration of 306,009 or 50.6%. Since our June Primary 10 days ago, the Republican plurality over Democrats increased by 938 voters. Beginning in May and looking back monthly, the Republican plurality over Democratic registration increased as follows:  (May) 1689, 1382,1148, 1503, 1226, (Jan) 502. Or, to look at the decline more broadly, since the current leadership recalled Jennifer Slaight Hansen, the Democratic voter registration deficit against Republicans statewide has increased by 11,034 voters, nearly total the vote for all candidates in many South Dakota Legislative Districts.  I keep waiting for the new SDDP leadership to begin to reverse the long term decline in Democratic Registration. 

We were told that the new E-Bike ordinance would NOT go into effect until June 1st because the city needed time to put up new signage. Mainly at the trailheads and SPEED LIMIT signs. So when June 1st rolled around I asked where was the signage? A couple of days after my inquiry this goofy pavement PSA (that will melt in the heat) showed up a couple of places on the trail.

Government moves in the speed of snail.

Also, I love the top of the graphic compared to the bottom. It says SHARE, so wouldn’t you show what is ALLOWED in a big graphic and what is NOT ALLOWED in a small graphic? Seems scoldy.

I don’t think most people care.

I tried to take a pic of a dude tonight on the trail, but I was laughing so hard I couldn’t get out my phone. First off, he didn’t look old enough to drink, but whatevs, but this dude was riding an electric foot scooter on the trail balancing himself on a case of Corona bottles (like I said, doubt he was old enough to drink based on his beer choice and container choice, and safety precautions 🙂