Stop the Funding on Forum
l3wis 
Sunday morning, but you can listen to the podcast now.
City Administration Building
When a former mayor says to honor the vote, how can you ignore it?
While I had my issues with Dave Munson as a mayor, at least his head is in the right place;
Former Sioux Falls Mayor Dave Munson said even if he was totally on board for a project, the voters voices should always be heard if ever there is a doubt.
“I think there was a affirmation of people of signing that petition that was put there that said people are interested enough to have a vote on it, and if I’ve got the good project I should be able to go out and discuss it,” he said. “I think it would give it more time for discussion or it.”
Even if technically the petition drive has its hiccups, you can’t argue with the 6400 people who signed it.
Despicable
It is about the only word I can use (besides some choice cuss words) to describe what the city attorney, the mayor and city clerk did to invalidate the signatures. A pure technicality based on the oath. The oath used on the petitions was a state oath (that is actually more stringent then the municipal oath, from what I understand just says the circulator should be a Sioux Falls resident). IMO, that could be easily fixed by just checking to see if the circulators are SF residents, which as far as I know are.
Ultimately this is the failure of the city clerk. The city clerk, Tom Greco, a guy who wasn’t even registered to vote until AFTER he was hired to be city clerk, must review and stamp a petition before it can be circulated. I also find this ironic, considering during the past city election campaigns, Greco was calling candidates about editing their financial reports, and allowing them to fix mathematical errors before posting them. He seemed to catch the minute accounting errors on these reports, but didn’t catch an oath? It is his job to make sure the petition was correct before it was circulated. He should have told Danielson at the time it was the incorrect oath, he did not. Failure of the city clerk to do his job properly as the municipal election overseer is a fireable offense. The city council could move forward and fire him for not properly performing his duties.
I warned Danielson that it would be an uphill battle, because our city clerk and city attorney will try to find any loophole they can to get their way. Mayor Huether’s administration doesn’t like to lose or interference from the citizens. He proved this with his two tie-breaking votes and the veto. It may be as simple as a judge saying the petitions are valid since the circulators took an oath and the petition signers are valid. It seems that is our only option now since city administrators that we pay with our taxdollars put up a gigantic middle finger to all the people who signed the petition.
Several elected officials across the state hate petitions. Mayor Huether proved this when he refused to sign the snow gate petition even though he supported them publicly. Before Shantel Krebs became SOS, she also told a petitioner that she doesn’t sign petitions and didn’t believe in that process. These are people in leadership folks, running our elections. That should scare the CRAP out of all of us.
Stop the Funding on Knobe
Stop the Funding co-chair Bruce Danielson was on Rick Knobe’s ViewPoint University on August 26, 2016 talking what’s next updates. Rick and Bruce had a great discussion of what’s next in the process of going to the public vote or not.
Will the mayor make our vote illegal or not, this is the question the voters of Sioux Falls get to ponder.
Listen to Rick afternoons on ViewPoint University, am 1140, KSOO radio 4 to 5pm.
Hildebrand writes letter about administration building vote
Steve points out the importance of a vote on the building;
Please let the citizens of Sioux Falls vote on the $25 million city administration building. Only three of the eight members of the City Council supported this expansion of city government. Five members strongly oppose it. Now, those same three want to stop the citizens from having a say, even though more than 6,500 of us signed petitions in just a few days to get this on the ballot – more than enough signatures to qualify.
I don’t oppose building additional office space if it’s needed for city staff. I do oppose this $25 million, 80 square foot building, because the city has done no strategic planning to even determine how much space they need in 10 years, 20 years, etc. Let’s do the strategic planning first, then determine what kind of building, if any, we need for the future.
First and foremost, elected officials shouldn’t deny citizens the chance to vote on major projects like this. The Mayor and City Council pushed for a public vote on a $25 million indoor swimming pool just a few months ago. Why now, shouldn’t the public have a voice in the largest expansion of city government in my lifetime?
Let the people vote.
Technically there was ‘kind of a vote’ on the indoor pool. We were voting on an outdoor pool, with confusing ballot language (that contained a typo on the date) and misleading advocational sessions. But I still think people wanted the pool by rejecting the outdoor pool in an election.
Steve points out the importance of the vote. Councilor Rolfing pointed out that ‘6,400 people isn’t a lot.’ That’s ironic in itself, because that is HALF the number of people who voted in the previous city election. Rex needs to stop listening to his four golf buddies and start listening to the public. Call the election!