Augustana has wiped the event from their yearly schedule, but I did ascertain this promotional piece;
What I am hearing is that she abruptly cancelled the meeting and the reasons given are varied rumors, so I won’t list them, but FIRST I am curious if the event WAS cancelled and if so, WHY and by WHO?
These clowns were hosting the event, so it was a good possibility they may have canceled it due to student protests. But Johnson is known for her thin skin and paranoia around ‘liberals trying to get her.’ I’m guessing someone from the student body council told them to go to Heck (though if I was a student I totally would have allowed it and showed up to watch the comedy show and challenge the fools during Q & A. The best way to solve our political discourse in this country is to talk to each other, share our views and correct and critique each other. Things won’t improve if we stay in our own bullpens. That is my biggest complaint about young libs, they constantly preach to the choir. Expand your horizons. I worked on several political campaigns and majority of them were Republicans because I believed in their policy ideas. I heard a quote from Tim Johnson today (RIP) “Neither party has an advantage on good ideas or bad ideas.”)
Maybe I was the setup? I spoke at the informational meeting* today during public input. Since there was nothing on the agenda except more executive sessions I chose to speak about item #4 on the agenda, which was PUBLIC COMMENT. I basically informed them that council meeting rules don’t supersede the US Constitution’s 1st Amendment and they need to stop cutting people off. I directed my comments at the entire council, not just chair Soehl. I told them they need to STOP the chair if they are wrongfully cutting people off. I think the council needs a crash course in the 1st Amendment and Public Input, and would even be willing to give my taxdollars to school them. They don’t seem to understand who controls the government, it’s not them, it’s us.
Well the mayor must be off at a jumping jacks convention because Curtis decided to chair the next regular meeting (FF: 41:00) and he got another earful about how they fail to listen to constituents and when they have no discussion on unanimous votes it tells the public you are making decisions before the meeting in private conversations (heck, the school board has been doing that for decades!)
Though some of the people who spoke tonight have shady pasts (that was an interesting google search 🙁 they made valuable points about our 1st Amendment rights and how ineffective and thin skinned our current council is, and the longer termed members are the worst of the lot!
This council better buck up fast and take control of the public’s meetings, because it is turning into a real circus and the dancing bears are the council.
*The meeting hasn’t posted yet because they were having ‘technical’ issues. These same issues pop up every couple of weeks for the past decade or more. You would think the city IT department would have figured this out already?! I am pretty damn sure they are censoring certain things and that is why it happens so often. I mean, someone can’t f’up that much unless it is on purpose.
One of the public inputers, Bruce Head told us he is suing the city over civil rights. Here is a link to the filing.
Remember the game of connect the dots? We will get to that in a moment.
It all started with a thot I had Friday night while listening to announcements from the Levitt stage.
Is Matt Paulson trying to build a local media empire to influence city hall policy even more?
It all started over a year ago when a local (seasoned) journalist told me that there are plans in the works to combine all the small local independent or semi-independent media outlets and freelancers into one organization, or at least under an umbrella of cooperation. I don’t need to list these orgs, if you read this blog, you read their sites also. This plan was later confirmed to me from another associate, but told me the plan still has some kinks in it and setbacks. I didn’t blog about this because frankly when I first heard it, I was rooting for them and said it was a great idea, let’s just see if it will work.
While many of these indies have talent, they don’t have a lot of capital, they need outside investors to make this work and they need to sell a butt load of advertising to pay everyone’s salaries.
Then walks in Matt Paulson.
But let’s play that game of ‘connect the dots’ I spoke about earlier;
• Matt Paulson has funded every campaign of all of the current 8 councilors and the mayor and many past councilors.
• Jodi Schwan leaves the Argus to start her own business website.
• Patrick Lalley, Reposa, Ellis and Sneve leave the Argus to start their own independent sites, with a small kink, Market Dweebs owner, Matt Paulson has quietly been investing in the Dakota Scout, something the council and the SOS failed to inform the public about.
• In one of the most unethical moves by city council they approve the Dakota Scout contract for legals without releasing the investors names.
• I learned Friday night at the Levitt that Paulson has hired a local popular TV anchor to work at Market Dweeb.
I’m not sure what shoe will drop next but if I were KELOLAND, DAKOTANEWS or the Argus, (nevermind, they are already a sunken ship), I would be nervous about my advertising dollars and the whole integrity of the media locally. While I like local independent journalists, I’m not sure I care for their investors, who seem to be buying up city hall candidates and now local journalists so he can control the narrative even more.
Art censoring little . . .
As a community we should be very nervous and cautious of how this potential media merger will occur, but like everything else this Dweeb touches, it will all be done in the dark of the night, because that’s how the fourth estate does things these days.
Still waiting for my offer Matt 🙂 The Scab could really use a cartoonist that used a different medium besides crayons.
“Public meetings are not safe spaces for elected officials,” Fitzpatrick said. “They should expect to hear the unvarnished thoughts from their constituents, and if they can’t handle that, they shouldn’t be in public office.”
Did you hear that Paul? Time to resign.
Paul struggles with his Constitutional oath of office. When you say you will defend the constitution that means every amendment including the first. At the informational Curt was cutting people off also. I will remind the mayor for the 1000th time, people can say whatever they want to at public input as long as they are not physically threatening council. It is really frustrating that constitutional officers don’t understand their oath. Oh that’s right Paul went to the school of doxing and closed government. If he ever cuts me off I will continue to speak right thru him, because I know the security police in the room will not arrest anyone for practicing their 1st Amendment rights.
UPDATE: Speaking of that last sentence, I encourage any constituent who is being cut off by the mayor to stand your ground. I won’t defend you if you are yelling and dropping S and F bombs but if you are being respectful and actually talking about ‘government’ in general they can’t arrest you. In fact, I know that the SFPD has told the mayor they will NOT arrest anyone at the council meeting for practicing their 1st amendment rights. So let’s challenge him and see what happens? It would be a black eye on the administration if the mayor requests security arrest an 80 year old woman who is complaining about her neighbor’s stereo.
I figured a judge would toss this. (Actually an injunction was denied, the case can still move forward) never understood the argument they were making. The Dakota Scout could not register until after the legislature changed the law.
I think the bigger issue here is the MASSIVE CONFLICT OF INTEREST. I think if not a few, ALL councilors knew that Paulson was an investor and all 9 councilors (includes mayor) have received money and campaign assistance from the email farmer.
But let’s play an ignorant constituent and PRETEND that the council had NO clue who the investors were. If that were the case, why did they vote on this? They know that they have to file a investor disclosure with the SOS and that disclosure should have been a public document BEFORE the council voted. But somehow that filing got mysteriously misplaced.
Shananigans.
This case should have never been about timelines, it’s about a council who has NO ethics and approves a contract that will benefit an investor. And I would argue that Paulson isn’t really benefitting monetarily, but he does control the narrative. You know, like when you reject a mural because you think it is racist, and the media, including the DS didn’t touch the story with a ten foot pool. Shocker!
This case isn’t a question of legality, the Dakota Scout met SOME of those requirements, it is a ETHICAL issue and ALL 9 on that DAIS need to taken to the ethics commission, one by one, and dealt their punishment.
My position on the matter hasn’t changed. The internet has been in existence for over 30 years, it is time to embrace it. Public notices in a paper with a circulation of 5,000 or even 7,000 isn’t cutting it. Nobody goes and reads 6 point type in a paper you pickup at Burger King. Give me a break! It is laughable to think that even one single person is getting their legals from a printed paper.
If you want to see public notices, you can, 24/7, 365 days a year, for free, ONLINE! And if you still want to resist the evil internet you can go to the clerk’s office (unfortunately they don’t serve cheeseburgers) and get a print out. This isn’t hard folks. Stop wasting tax dollars on a service that virtually 1% population MAY use.
Maybe the city could have Legal Notice Mondays and have food trucks in front of Carnegie that wrap your sandwiches in printed out legal notices! Bet you would reach about half of the population that way, because if there is one thing Sioux Falls is good at, it’s eating!
It’s all pretty damn ridiculous how our state legislature crafts laws. They still think it is 1952.
l3wis 
