Why Did we Give Sioux Falls School District Employees an $800 dollar bonus?

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Before everyone calls me a Scrooge, I will say I agree with School Board president Mickelson’s sentiments;

“. . . yet give as much as we can to our staff while they are going through this hard and very difficult time,” Cynthia Mickelson said.

I think if public servants like teachers go the extra mile they deserve a little something more.

But here are my issues with this;

• This is not the private (for profit) sector. The school district is funded by taxpayers. Believe it or not, most, if not all of my friends and family have worked straight thru this pandemic including myself. Many of them have never got a ‘bonus’ including myself for showing up. But the very workers we subsidize with our taxes are handed bonuses for simply showing up and doing their job – just like the rest of us have. I get it, it’s not easy, there are many days I just want to say, ‘Screw it’ this isn’t worth the risk, but I also know we will get thru this, so I soldier on.

• Instead of a bonus, maybe better sick leave and raises would be more appropriate. As I understand it, district employees have a very good sick leave policy.

• Unlike the private sector, school district employees get fantastic benefits, healthcare and PENSIONS! PENSIONS! I know, something that has almost disappeared in the private sector.

• Many school district employees get the entire summer off. Basically they receive 12 months of pay for 9 months of work. I get it, they may work many more hours during that 9 months, but how many of you in the private sector would love to work a few extra hours a week to get 3 months off in the summer? I think I know the answer to that question. Let’s talk about a ‘bonus’!

While I think it is nice gesture to give this bonus, remember, this comes from you and me, not the school board. It is also fair to point out that the more money we give towards wages is less money we are spending on learning materials and capital expenses for EDUCATING STUDENTS!

I think if this community was flush with money, this would be a blip on the radar screen. But while a lot of us in the private sector are struggling, we ask when are we getting our $800 property tax cut?

Why couldn’t this bonus come from the millions of dollars of Federal Corona virus monies instead of handed over to businesses that may or may not trickle it down to their workers?

This bonus was foolish and fiscally irresponsible.

I think a better plan would have been giving the staff that worked through this pandemic full-time a better raise instead of a blanket bonus.

REWARD THE ONES THAT DESERVE IT WITH PERMANENT APPRECIATION IN THEIR PAYCHECKS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR!

I often shake my head when elected officials pat themselves on the back when they are giving our money away. To all the staff that got this bonus, your’e welcome, to the elected officials who got a warm fuzzy feeling for giving my taxes away, you are also welcome.

Mayor TenHaken reveals his hypocrisy in Covid presser

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Paul, we have to close the beaches!

Most would feel bad for a mayor who lacks leadership, but it is kind of hard when he is a big fat hypocrite, as I have pointed out several times.

Today at the Covid presser when asked what he has done to control the spread he got mad and I think he even started sniffling a bit, he basically claimed he can’t control the habits of 200K people in a city that is 80 square miles. I would partially agree with him, but when he said he could not control the 500K that live in the region, I would have to disagree a bit.

Remember, this mayor with the assistance of the CVB and City Council thought it was a great idea to spend $250K of our taxdollars on promoting Covid tourism in the city. On top of that, the ad firm that got the contract to promote this tourism was none other than his former(?) agency ClickRain.

Now I am willing to give Mayor Stoneless a little rope on how much of this is his responsibility, but when you are out promoting tourism in our city (to the region) while spending OUR money that you are handing over to your friends, you kind of wonder what you are using the rope for? Maybe you need to use it to pull your hypocritical head out of your butt.

Yes, Paul, not only have you not led this city during this pandemic you have wasted our taxdollars to make it worse.

How incredibly idiotic to promote tourism in the middle of a deadly pandemic. And you are not sure what you can do to influence people to not be selfish? Like your former ad agency? Or the CVB? Or the people who want to come visit Sioux Falls from neighboring states because YOU asked them to?

Maybe we should have used the $250K to hire a city manager that understands leadership.

Will the Sioux Falls City Council Proposed Mask Mandate put Mayor Stoneless in a Pickle?

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As you may or may not know, Mayor TenHaken has to break ties on the council, and he may have to exercise one of his toughest next Tuesday or the following Tuesday. Next week is the first reading of the Sioux Falls mask mandate proposed by Councilors Mutt and Jeff, uh, I mean, Soehl and Kiley. If you count the votes on the council, it looks like they have a solid four votes that approve of the mandate in Starr, Brekke, Kiley and Soehl and probably a definitive NO in Councilor Erractickson and probably her ethically challenged lap dog Nutzert. Jensen and Selberg will be your swing votes on this. I could think either would cave to save the mayor from having to vote on this, if not both, but as of right now, it looks like he will have to break the tie. My prediction is he will vote against it, because he is so scared of the business community in town and Noem. What is ironic about this is, I actually agree with Soehl, if you want to see your businesses continue to stay open, especially during the busy holiday season, a mask mandate will help with this. You never know, the business community may finally give their blessing to this mandate after all.

Where I am on the fence is, is it is going to be very, very, very difficult to enforce this. Police officers will literally have to catch you in the act of NOT wearing a mask, I compare it to our useless fireworks within city limits ordinances. While I think putting the mandate on the books is good, I think the enforcement needs to be handled different. I actually think businesses should have the right to hire security and BAN people who won’t wear a mask. This of course brings us to the Constitutionality of mask mandates.

I believe it is well within the Constitutional rights of any private business or non-profit to mandate masks. It’s called FREE enterprise. I have often believed that private retailers and restaurants can limit who they do business with (as long as they are not discriminating because of protected class-obviously non-mask wearers doesn’t fall into those classes), and I think this is how the ordinance should be written, allowing them to require masks and if anyone refuses the violators can charged with trespassing instead of a mask violation. Where I think it violates constitutional rights is requiring masks in public, like in parks, on the sidewalk, etc. I think the city can limit mask use in Public buildings with a health exemption, but outside in public spaces, that’s a little tricky and doesn’t pass the civil rights smell test.

I also think with the way the Home Rule Charter is written, it will be hard to get someone to pay a citation, I think a trespassing violation would be a lot easier to collect on. I think if they do issue citations, they should be warnings only. This pandemic will soon pass, and chasing people down for mask fines or even trespassing after the virus is managed seems a bit of overkill and not worth the taxpayer expense, you know, kind of like destroying people’s records for smoking a joint.

There is going to be a lot of ‘bull’ thrown around over the next couple of weeks about this, and to be quite honest, I think we are too late on this, but I guess anything can help at this point. But we need to craft this carefully not to trample civil rights.

Is a Mask Mandate coming to Sioux Falls?

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I got word today that a pair of City Councilors may be preparing a First Reading of a mask mandate for the November 3rd meeting. Of course, we would have to wait a full week before a 2nd Reading would occur.

A recent survey (I think by one of the public colleges) said that 58% of respondents approve of a mask mandate. I actually think it is a lot higher, because when I go out shopping I see well over 80% of people wearing masks.

The two councilors working on the mandate ordinance are NOT the dynamic duo of Starr and Brekke.

I am assuming the mandate will be very weak, in other words it will be a mandate, but the police will NOT enforce and no penalties will be handed out. It will be a mandate with no punishment.

I guess I will have to wait an see what it looks like. But I think even a strongly suggestive mandate is way past due. Like I said above, I think most people support a mandate, and it is just a small very loud group of libertarian wing nuts who think people are taking away their civil liberties. These people obviously have NO idea what civil rights are about. This is about slowing the spread and saving lives and has nothing to do with what party you are in.

SD GOP’s Iowan Leader continues to spread Outrageous Lies about Pat Starr

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Their latest attempt at trying to smear Starr was trotting out PUC ‘lifer’ Gary Hanson, who has NO authority over Federal Rules that apply to cell phones, and has NO legal experience saying what he did was illegal. It would be like Mayor TenHaken saying he is assisting CDC scientists to come up with a safe Corona Virus Vaccine.

It’s laughable at best.

But Danny has been busy writing more press releases that are basically flat out lies about Starr, including basically calling him stupid;

Lederman noted, “it appears that Starr didn’t know or care about federal laws against robocalling and doesn’t understand laws that clearly state if you spend money as part of a campaign you need to attach a disclaimer to your expenditure. I get the impression that he’s just too dumb to be trusted with the responsibility of the Minnehaha County Treasurer’s office.

What Iowa Dan doesn’t understand is this WAS NOT a campaign expense, and since it was NOT he does not have to disclose diddly. The rules the real dummy cites have to do with political messaging and political campaigns.

. . . ‘but he’s the one responsible to not harass & bother people on their cell phones.

As I have said already, informing voters that they can vote safely and early during a pandemic emergency is hardly ‘harassment’. It would be like me calling the FCC to complain about a tornado warning I got on my cell phone at 2 AM because I was trying to sleep. How dare they wake me up before my roof blows away! The shame!

“Failing to take responsibility for one’s actions is not a quality that voters appreciate,” 

Hmm, that’s rich. Then why do people in your party continue to get reelected with things like EB5, Gear-Up and more scandals than I can count? Maybe the ‘dummies’ are your supporters? Oh that’s right, because people like you continue to LIE about the other party and blame them for YOUR failures. Your party has been in charge for nearly 50 years in South Dakota yet when something goes wrong you blame Democrats. Huh?

If I were to just take Starr’s record on the Council (Remember he had NO challengers for his 2nd term) he has consistently stood with residents when it comes to zoning and fiscal responsibility. That $26 million dollar debacle in DTSF comes to mind, voted in by a majority of REPUBLICANS on the city council. Oh, that’s right, Pat voted against it. Why? Because it was one of the DUMBEST (and fraudulent) projects ever concocted by this city government.

Iowa Dan continues by citing a FCC law that refers to telemarketers. Dan, let’s go over this again, and read this slowly. Pat wasn’t trying to sell voters a darn thing, he was only making them aware of their rights and responsibilities during a pandemic, that is called a Public Service Announcement. Usually, those announcements come from Public officials because it is one of their elected duties. Now, I know in your strange little twisted world a PSA is when the governor pays FOX News (with taxdollars) to air a tourism ad about South Dakota. There’s a difference, I hope you understand? Should we go over it again? I know from living in Iowa for a brief time, you corn fed folks tend to be a bit slower.

Let’s face it folks, the GOP doesn’t make any calls to voters unless they are trying to sell them their version of Horsepuckey, and the real idiots here are the ones accusing someone of illegal activity while the accused was giving voting advice during an emergency. Something these clowns would never do. Let’s talk about being stuck on stupid.