South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Harrisburg School District

Harrisburg School District

UPDATE: Harrisburg’s New City Manager already in turmoil

l3wis 10Comments

UPDATE: Figured more stuff would come out on this. Heath VonEye left the city of Madison, SD in 2011 after only 2.5 years as planning director;

VonEye said he “will seek other avenues to achieve his personal and professional goals” in explaining his resignation as Madison’s first public works director. He told the commissioners that his decision was determined by “circumstances beyond his control.”

It may be the oldest story in the book, misuse of public funds(?), fall back on Jesus, quit without punishment and move on to another town. I also heard from a Watertown official that Mack and VonEye had a policy of NOT sharing information with the council so they would vote for stuff they wanted passed. (must of learned that from Poops, he is consistently withholding info from our council.)

Harrisburg better do some serious soul searching.

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So the new city manager just starts and she is already causing issues with her new Deputy;

According to KXLG News, Harrisburg City Administrator Amanda Mack confirmed that the city has offered Heath VonEye a position as Deputy City Administrator. VonEye is currently Watertown’s Assistant City Manager and Public Works Director.

VonEye accepted the offer, but there is no start date as VonEye still needs to complete the resignation with the City of Watertown.

The new position comes with an annual salary of $195,000.


Amanda Mack was the previous City Manager of Watertown and resigned, which the Watertown City Council made effective on November 25. VonEye chose not to accept the Interim City Manager position and the city’s Chief Financial Officer, Kristen Bobzien, holds the title.

Watertown Mayor Ried Holien told KXLG News that the city was unaware VonEye was seeking employment elsewhere. The mayor also has a succession committee that will assist with selecting a new Watertown City Manager.

Word from residents in Harrisburg is that Mack and VonEye were BOTH hired without properly posting the jobs online, in a legal paper or the Municipal League website, still digging around on that. As for the executive session to let Mack go early which was a clear violation of open meeting laws, there may be a reason they didn’t want the ‘dirty laundry’ of city staff on full display and were willing to take the hit to cover it up. Let’s just say the rumors I have heard would not only disqualify BOTH candidates to work for the city of Watertown but also for Harrisburg. Then there is the nepotism. I certainly don’t know the reason why she was fired early, but if the rumors are true they will eventually be revealed and Harrisburg is going to have a lot of mud on their face when it is all over. Watertown is beyond help.

1st Amendment Canton Downtown Sioux Falls Harrisburg School District Mayor TenHaken Open Government Open Meetings Sioux Falls Tea

Is this proof that Mayor TenHaken is actively pursuing closed government?

l3wis 5Comments

Not sure, but I will lay this out for you. Around a year ago or so MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization of Sioux Falls) had a zoom meeting. At the meeting were several city administrators I believe from Tea, Canton and Mayor TenHaken. The city manager of Harrisburg could NOT attend so he designated a private contractor who was the city’s acting (part-time) planning director at the time (they just recently pulled back after hiring Watertown’s Planning person). The ‘fill-in’ at the meeting said the discussion quickly turned to the dividing line between SF and Harrisburg and Poops adamant distinction of HWY 101 being that line. The ‘fill-in’, a former city of Sioux Falls engineer, disagreed with the mayor and said that is not ‘definitive’ and never has been. Then the mayor proceeded to accuse this person of lying about what he ‘knows’ and what he believes (I am still waiting for the minutes from the meeting). Besides the meeting itself being a little rough and contentious it was what Poops did after the meeting that was really petty. He instructed that MPO changes it’s meeting rules only to include city employees as fill-ins and not private contractors. While I agree, seemed it a little odd you would send your private contractor to this meeting, BUT, they were discussing planning and development and he was the acting planning director for Harrisburg, so it made sense at the time. I just find it incredibly insecure and petty to make a rule change because you didn’t like a private citizen telling you what was up in an a official meeting so you change the rules. You got a lot of issues man.

Harrisburg School District Open Government Open Meetings

Update I: Did the city of Harrisburg violate open meeting laws

l3wis 3Comments

Update: I want to correct this post. Since it has been confirmed he resigned and was not terminated they can handle it as a personal issue in executive session. Now if he didn’t willingly resign, they would have to vote on terminating him in public.

Update: The rumor circulating is he was terminated because he pissed off developers. I know, shocker!

The short answer is YES. When the Sioux Falls city council decided to fire then city clerk Owens behind closed doors they got slapped with an open meetings violation. Harrisburg recently fired their city administrator behind closed doors. That is a NO-NO. Whether the person was doing a good job* or not does not matter, an appointed position like this is hired in the open and fired in the open. I hope this person slaps Harrisburg with this violation.

*There was a quiet recall effort amongst citizens in Harrisburg to get rid of the city administrator. Not sure if this had an effect on his firing or not? He also was getting into it with our mayor over jurisdiction lines and the state over the prison. Will we ever know why he was fired?

Elections Harrisburg School District Sioux Falls

When you don’t vote, your taxes will go up

l3wis 11Comments

You can’t give much credit to the Harrisburg School District or the media for making this election known. I believe I saw ONE story a few weeks ago about the election. It had a 4% voter turnout. That is pathetic. I think it is time that local elections require at least a 20% voter turnout to be legitimate. 769 voters basically went to the polls yesterday and raised the taxes on over 23K voters (and thousands more non-voting residents). I am puzzled how we can allow 769 people to decide to take out a $30 million dollar bond.

I do believe the school is needed, no arguments there, but this looks more like a county fair straw poll than an actual election.

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