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Ethics SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Meeting, Sept 1, 2020

l3wis 15Comments

It was another lively night at the city council meeting. During public input, once again the Municipal Band was brought up to be saved, and once again you could hear the mayor audibly sighing into his microphone. Hey you brought this on yourself. Probably one of the stupidest things I have ever seen a mayor do.

Bob Kolbe (I think it was him, hard to tell with a mask on). Ripped into the council a bit about ethics and drop boxes for voting. Another citizen also piped up about ballot drop boxes, I think her best line was, “In case you haven’t noticed we are the middle of a Covid Pandemic.” AND “If you are telling us it is unsafe to vote in person, unsafe to vote by mail, and unsafe to vote by drop boxes, it is pretty evident you are trying to suppress our votes .” (paraphrasing).

Sierra also appeared to remind the council that legitimate and legal massage therapists are sick of the prostitution and men harassing them because of the illegitimate therapists. I’ll tell you why it is taking so long for these places to be shut down, because a lot of elite individuals in town frequent these places, and we certainly can’t have their extracurricular activities shut down. I also don’t think Mayor Stoneless understands the gravity of the situation, neither does our Chief of Police who last night was more concerned about building his $52 million dollar training center (which we will bond for instead trying to acquire some Federal Dollars – now that’s leadership folks).

It also appears another apartment building will be pushed through though the neighbors (homeowners) don’t want it since it was originally zoned as office. Of course the accolades for how great developers are were ensued by the RS6.

Greg Nutzert’s ethics challenge was also read into the record, and now the city has to spend another $5,000 for legal representation on the matter and had to hire a law firm. Greg, you can stop this circus before it turns into a 3 ring extravaganza, admit guilt and apologize so we can all move on. I might even buy you a jug of hand sanitizer . . . nevermind . . . you should probably pay for that yourself 😊

Ethics Greg Neitzert SF City Council Sioux Falls

Councilor Neitzert could end the ethics circus

l3wis 11Comments

As we all know by now, Councilor Greg Neitzert is in the center of an ethics challenge. Let’s recap;

• While Greg was at a partisan political event in Texas he decided to email the entire council about the trip. Mind you, he did this WHILE attending the event, NOT before. He also didn’t ask his colleagues in advance if they thought it was OK to attend an event paid for by the event sponsor. And here is the kicker, he still has NOT given a written or oral report to the entire council of what he learned.

• A citizen, John Cunningham obtained a copy of the email Greg sent. Which, BTW, was not marked confidential and sent to the councilors official email addresses. In other words, public property. Anyone had a right to read or obtain a copy of the email.

• As understand the situation, Mr. Cunningham was so upset about the blatant ethics and code violation, he filed a complaint to the Board of Ethics. Unfortunately, he filed the complaint siting the chapter in ordinance that pertains to city employees and NOT elected officials. Instead of the BOE correcting the chapter mistake at the first hearing by simply making a motion, they threw it out, so John had to refile it with the correct reference.

• Neitzert asked for confidentiality in the matter from the beginning, I assume because he was running for re-election. Since the City attorney had a conflict, they used outside independent counsel. Which has cost the taxpayers around $7,000 and maybe more before this is all done.

• After the correct chapter was referenced, the hearing began behind closed doors. The BOE met three separate dates in private before rendering a letter that basically said that Greg was in violation, but it wasn’t a big deal. Saying it was common practice. This part in the letter continues to confuse me. I’m trying to figure out what other councilor or elected official has done this (not asking permission and taking partisan money). I could find only ONE official that has done this for the past two years on repeated occasions; Mayor TenHaken.

• After the city council received the letter they claimed to be confused about what to do with it, Council Erraktison said it was ‘clear as mud’. I will admit, the first time I read it, it was pretty murky, but after a couple of times, it was clear to me that Greg was in violation of city ordinance. They returned it to the BOE for clarification, which didn’t sit well with them and they said to re-read it.

• Days before the BOE thru the letter back at the Council, Nietzert stupidly sent a letter to the BOE asking for it to be thrown out, without the advice of his attorneys. He also went on The Greg Belfrage show and spewed all kinds of things like suggesting that Cunningham (a private citizen) colluded with other councilors to do a political hit job on him before an election. As far as I know, Mr. Cunningham had nothing to do with Greg’s opponent’s campaign, and further more John is a retired municipal employee who has worked for several cities across the country. He simply was concerned about integrity and ethics. That’s it.

So where does it go from here? My understanding is that there will be a pre-hearing to give Neitzert the opportunity to call witnesses and for Mr. Cunningham to do the same. Than a hearing will proceed.

If I was still giving Greg advice, which I have not in several years, I would tell him he could end this circus and make this less expensive and less painful for all involved. If I was Greg I would do this next week;

• Admit guilt and apologize to the citizens, fellow councilors and especially Mr. Cunningham for trying to lay the guilt on them.

• As part of the punishment, I would pay back the partisan group for the trip and resign as council chair.

• And lastly, I would tell the council who the others were that attended the trip with him. We already know the mayor was one of these people, but who was the city staffer that Greg mentions in the Belfrage interview?

• Oh, and give us a report already of what you ‘learned’ at this event.

Ultimately, I think Greg will fight this to the bitter end, which will be a sad episode in our city’s history. And he will lose, big time.

Ethics Sioux Falls

When will the Sioux Falls Board of Ethics reconvene

l3wis 2Comments

Remember a few weeks ago when the BOE met? They still have not reconvened to make a final decision (they must vote in public). In fact, they didn’t even make a decision on when to reconvene, which should have been done in public before escaping out the bathroom windows.

I still have no idea what the complaint is and who it is against. Oh yes, I have my guesses, but since everything was behind closed doors and ‘confidential’ the public has no idea what is going on. This is extremely egregious.

It will be interesting to see if and when they reconvene. My guess is that they will wait until after July 14. Why is that date important? That is when the newly installed council gets sworn in and that new body picks it’s leaders (chair and vice chair). Like I said, not sure if these two issues have anything to do with each other, but trust me, I’m not naive either.

Ethics SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Sioux Falls Ethics Board meets Friday to discuss the ethics of some mysterious Mickey Mouse city official

l3wis 10Comments

UPDATE: After a brief public input session the BOE met for approximately 4 hours in executive session with the accused being represented by what seemed to be two attorneys who were in the room before the session started. As I understand it the person who filed the complaint and the accused attorneys left the meeting two hours into it and they met for another two hours then recessed. In other words the BOE did not emerge for a public vote which means they are still in discussions about the validity of the complaint. It seems odd to me that 5 people can’t make a simple decision in a matter of 4 hours. Of course we still don’t know who Mr. Mouse is, and we don’t even know what the complaint is. Will we ever know? The BOE of course will have to reschedule a later time to finish deliberations. Who knows when that will be?

Another interesting tidbit is that one of the attorneys representing the accused seems to be the same person representing the Jensen camp in the re-count next week. Of course, this is not surprising since there probably isn’t a lot of attorneys out there willing to wade into the waters of election recounts and ethics complaints.

First, let’s pretend for a minute that Mickey Mouse works for the city, and let’s just say, Mr. Mouse took a trip paid for by a partisan group. Then let’s say that this same Mr. Mouse already had a violation thrown out on a technicality, which cost taxpayers in outside counsel $3,750. Then let’s say the city council met last night to approve another expenditure for Mr. Mouse from the SAME law firm that could not exceed $7,500. But for some reason none of us seem to know who Mr. Mouse is? Could we assume that the first Mr. Mouse is the same Mr. Mouse that is being looked at a 2nd time around? Or could it be his friend Donald Duck? Or maybe it is from another department? Maybe Mr. Pooh. Or Waldo? Or the Grinch? Oh, it’s probably Rat Fink!

Here is my take. If you are a city official, and an ethics complaint is filed against you, and you think your are innocent, why hide behind confidentiality? As Porky Pig would say, ‘That’s all Folks!’

Christine Erickson Ethics Greg Neitzert Patrick Starr SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Councilor Erickson thinks it is a ‘Mystery’ that Councilor Neitzert is costing taxpayer’s up to $7,500 to defend him against an ethics complaint, a second time

l3wis 10Comments

I often chuckle when Erickson accuses Stehly of being the crazy one on the council. Kettle meet black. Tonight at the city council regular meeting when councilor Starr pulled the consent agenda item about the potential $7,500 legal fee for Neitzert’s ethics complaint for outside counsel defense Erickson accused Starr of releasing confidential information.

I about died laughing.

Starr encouraged her to read the Argus Leader. It is all there in black and white.

Once again, I was laughing.

Christine seems to think that since the public already knows there was an ethics complaint against Neitzert that was thrown out on a technicality that the public doesn’t know the 2nd time around it is also against him. Who did she think the 2nd complaint was against with the proper legal reference this time around? Bugs Bunny?

While none of us have seen it in writing it is against him, isn’t the writing on the freaking wall?! Duh!

But I guess we are all conspiracy theorists. Nope. We are realists.

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