Is Huether using the media to take the temperature of voters?

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Argus Leader‘s Stu Whitney is doing a two-part interview with Huether about his political future. Not sure what, if anything will be revealed. We have been down the road of Huether crying wolf several times over the past couple of months. From his changing registration to indy press conference, to his several non announcements with B-N-B and Brian Allen. Will this time be any different?

I wonder if Huether is using Whitney to take the temperature of voters if or what he should run for. I think Congress would be his road of least resistance. But he has had his eye on governor for years. I think he would have a better chance of beating Noem then Jackley, but I also think his chances of winning are higher facing Krebs or Johnson. There is also the rumor that he may hope Diamond Jim wins as mayor and pose as a placeholder so Huether can run for the job again in 2022 (like he is Janklow 🙁

So, I guess we will wait and see if he pulls the trigger, or if he continues to cry wolf about a possible state wide run.

Personally, if I was the Publisher of the AL or Whitney, I would have made it clear with Huether there would be NO interview unless he was making an official announcement.

How many people has the Huether Match Pointe kept out of prison?

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While the Glory House and the Board of Directors may be happy with the deal the city cut with them, I for one am not. It’s another example of the mayor’s bullying, not only with the Glory House but the council to get his way;

“A great team of leaders from the administration worked hard to meet the needs Glory House has for expansion but also find some common ground, which will end up as a big win for the taxpayers, too,” said Heather Hitterdal, communication specialist at City Hall.

Under the deal, Glory House will pay $50,000 and in return receive about half of the land the city owns there now. The rest will be sold at auction.

How much that will rake in for the city won’t be known until it’s sold, but market value puts it in the neighborhood about $300,000 or more.

The public ALREADY WON before the deal was struck. I would even argue that the deal is worse for taxpayers because it doesn’t leave room for expansion of the GH. It costs taxpayers $54 a day to incarcerate someone in state prison, about $20K a year. If you keep just 3 people out of prison for one year, you already made your money back, and heck, if you keep those same 3 people out of prison for 5 years, you have paid for the entire plot of land.

How many people has the tennis center kept out of prison? Or better yet, what VALUE has the tennis center gave us? Will we ever recoup the $500K we dumped into this facility? A facility I hear can barely keep it’s doors open especially after the dust up with Cindy Huether and the SFTA.

See unlike the Tennis Center that uses the funny math of ‘quality of life’ the Glory House can actually show REAL numbers of what keeping ex-cons out of prison saves taxpayers. The $50K price-tag was an amount to soothe the Mayor’s MONSTER ego more then anything.

“I think it’s a win-win-win all around. It’s a way in which we can help the Glory House and do the right thing but we can also protect the taxpayer dollar and get some revenue out of a piece of the land,” he said. “I applaud the administration for coming around in the spirit of compromise and coming up with something that everybody can live with.”

And once again, the mayor can’t keep his nose out of where it doesn’t belong, the council’s business. This ‘deal’ was initiated by the council, and should have been finished by them.

Inefficiency is what makes Paratransit expensive

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When Mike wants something, he will say about anything to get it. He keeps bringing up the fact that we need to raise fees, especially on public transportation and Paratransit. He points out that the Feds give the city about $13 million a year for several different programs, then he makes the hysterical comment that we ‘should pay for these things ourselves’.

Let remind my conservative friends who think the Federal government is going broke (and now that Mike is a Trump loving Indy) that it doesn’t really matter. WE pay Federal Income Taxes for Federal programs, and I am sure it is WELL over $13 million a year in Sioux Falls. When the Feds ‘Give’ us money, it is OUR money.

But what I find hypocritical is that the same mayor didn’t blink an eye when FEMA gave us $10 million for the ice storm or $27 million for the RR track land that is worth about $2-4 million.

Which brings us to his continuous rant about Paratransit costing $30 a ride.

You want to know why? Inefficiencies. I don’t think or believe Paratransit has upgraded their dispatch system for probably over a decade. And why would they? When you had the cash cow called the Feds funding most of your program, inefficiency means you can charge more.

I will defend MMM on one thing, it’s time to start finding a way to save taxpayers money on Paratransit.

I did some rough 30 minute research on what a taxi company makes on rides, expenses, etc. Then I looked at the Paratransit route system in Sioux Falls. Even if we gave only one way rides to one person on transit system like a cab, and used a similar old school dispatch system, it shouldn’t cost more then $12 a ride. Now let’s say we put in a super modern dispatch system that picked up multiple riders at once we could probably get that number down to $4 or $5 a ride.

There is obviously some efficiency problems with Paratransit, so why punish the riders with higher fees? That’s business acumen for yah!

B-N-B & Hizzoner cook up a conspiracy about Stehly

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I was actually laughing while listening to Greg and Mike, because you could tell they cooked this up off air.

Last week, Sioux Falls city councilor, Stehly was on B-N-B’s show talking about how the city used a consultant with a special van to rate our streets. For some reason or on purpose, Greg misunderstood Stehly thinking she was opposed to the consultant, and that wasn’t the point she was trying to make, she was against what Mark Cotter, head of Public Works was doing with that valuable information.

They essentially are going to let the really bad streets get worse and concentrate more on overlays, when Stehly believes we should concentrate more money on fixing the really bad streets.

B-N-B thought Stehly was trying to discredit Cotter and the consultant when it came to the evaluation, not at all. She simply was disagreeing with HIS decision to NOT fix the really bad roads. But Greg seemed to still have a burr up his ass about it this week and couldn’t resist to share (his side) of the story with the mayor, who simply chimed in (without even listening to what Stehly said).

I really laughed when MMM boldly said he was NOT going to let a councilor get away with saying these kind of things.

Oh, Mike, you are such a bad ass! Now go help Greg pack before the big auction.