State of the City • 2017

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Our mayor decided to drop the mic today and deliver his last state of the city. He couldn’t resist to tell us about his NEW BFF, councilor Erickson (Yes, Thank You Christine for paving the way for Diamond Jim as mayor 🙁

There were 40 slides in his manifesto, carefully tearing headlines from America’s top ratings firms that no one has heard of until we made their lists (Full DOC: state-of-city-2017).

Yes, I sat through it, holding back my bile.

What was ironic about the presentation was that Mike was going to fix all the things he essentially broke. And the best part, he needs your help to fix those things.

Let’s start with his obsession with annexation islands;

Unlike the finely trimmed grey beard of Kenny, Mr. Huether created this problem by extending the borders of Sioux Falls so his fine developer friends could get in on all the yummy infrastructure upgrades. You might say MMM is the Andy Gibb of annexation islands.

Oh, but the fun doesn’t stop, he wants to raise fees on all us working stiffs to pay for all the play palaces he built on our credit card.

If you ain’t poor now, you are gonna be.

Speaking of dying poor peeps, we all have to have priorities in this dying economy.

Yeah, after your older brother broke your piggy bank and took all your savings, you just need to buck up!

Which leaves us to what ultimately will happen;

He forgot to mention that a low-wage community doesn’t spend a lot of money.

BOOMTOWN!

And this guy wants to run for higher office?! LMFAO!

Detroit Lewis Prediction; Huether will announce for higher office within the next two weeks

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I think MMM will make his announcement before April 7th. If I was a betting guy, I would say Tuesday, April 4. I still think he is going to announce for US Congressional run, but it seems lately all the right wing squackers in the state seem to think he is running for governor, so I may be wrong.

So why do I think the announcement will take place this soon? A couple of factors. I think Mike wanted to see who was running on the Republican side, and he either KNOWS or THINKS the Democratic challenger doesn’t matter. I think he also wanted to wait until his main man Diamond Jim made his mayoral announcement. There is also the several interviews he did over the past couple of weeks, even one where he did an interview with his ‘bride’ on his bed (living room couch). But I have also noticed some disappearing CityLink YouTube videos lately that feature Mike. He knows from the last time he ran for his second term, it is a no-no to be in any NEW videos after his announcement. He also had to wait to make his biggest campaign speech (the state of the city) on Tuesday.

Maybe I am completely wrong, or maybe he will spite me and announce on April 10th. Either way, it will be soon.

Apparently KSFY has become Huether’s official ‘Higher Office’ campaign propaganda network

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After he officially announces, he can no longer use CityLink to campaign. Thats means NO more ‘Ask the Mayor’ or ‘Shut Up and Listen sessions’ or press conferences for that matter. In fact, after his March 28th city address, Mike really can’t appear on CityLink anymore unless it is a regular city council meeting (and I would highly suggest the city council after picking new leadership in May that they start running those meetings and respectfully ask the mayor to sit in the audience and only participate if needed to break a tie, in which he would have to walk to the podium to do so.) It is against state law for the mayor or any elected official for that matter, to use tax payer funded media to campaign. I really think this is why Mike is dragging his feet as much as possible. He has been enjoying the press, that will soon end, and the REAL ‘HURT’ will start;

Another challenge, she says, is the criticism.

“When someone is in public service, they’re doing what they think is best for people. I don’t think people understand that sometimes. They say mean, hurtful things that they don’t always realize that we are people and that you still feel bad when people say these things. I think now, we see it worldwide with social media. People never have to face someone and tell them things. They always hide behind social media. That’s a real hard part. He takes it better than the rest of the family. That’s been hard. Through the years you realize that’s part of the deal,” Cindy said.

Stop picking on my Poo Bear! As I told a foot soldier last week, ‘If Mike thinks I’m hard on him, wait until he has the full force of the Online SD Republican hate machine breathing down his back and watching his every move as he runs for higher office. Also, don’t forget about all the Dems that supported him in the past that he took a crap on.

He will be begging Detroit Lewis to write a scathing article about snow gates or pot holes.

The Mayor doesn’t understand appeals and the council doesn’t understand hydraulics

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Who thought this thing would cause such a fuss?

When I watch the council meetings from home, the fun stuff always happens.

Oh well, I’ll give you my ‘tractoring’ advice from home.

I am already exhausted before I even start explaining the city council meeting tonight.

Deep breath.

I asked councilor Stehly to question why the city needs to buy a brand new snow trimmer at a cost for $300K tonight by pulling it from the consent agenda. I never thought it would turn into an argument about public input and appealing the mayor’s decision.

But it did. (please watch the spectacle – right after public input)

It amazed me that councilors Starr and Stehly (with 2 votes from Erickson and Neitzert) pulled off an appeal of the mayor’s decision to close down public input on a consent agenda item, but what was even more interesting was when the mayor asked what the appeal meant? And questioned if Starr knew more about Robert Rules then he does (yeah, he actually does, it’s kind one of his ‘things’).

So after that fight was won, a board member from Great Bear came up and testified AGAINST Stehly saying the new trimmer was needed ‘for the kids’ of course.

Poetic justice?

Well not really. Growing up on a farm and working construction I know a little bit about ‘hydraulics’ it’s those greasy tubes that have hoses that break a lot (that’s the unscientific version, but stick with me.) Before the public was ‘allowed’ to speak during a 10 minute melt-down and a confused city attorney, a Parks Department mid-manager explained that the current snow trimmer was ten years old, at the end of it’s warranty life, and had 7,000 hours on it.

Uh, okay. So?

He then tried to explain that it was at the end of it’s life. LOL.

Not quite. He continued to say that replacing the hydraulics on it (if they break) would cost around $60K.

So I guess in his world if you get a chip in the windshield of your car, you need to replace all the windows and headlights.

First off, in ‘tractoring’ life, 7,000 hours is ‘breaking it in’. That is basically 6 hours a day, 116 days for ten years.

Secondly, on the farm, if a hydraulic or hose breaks on your tractor, you don’t replace every piece, you fix the problem. It’s like saying you need to replace a $500K combine because it got a flat tire. It’s ludicrous.

There’s also the argument that if ONE of these hydraulics breaks you have to be shut down for a long period of time. Not true, a good mechanics garage with the city would have back up parts that could be replaced in a timely fashion.

So there you have it, a lesson in Roberts Rules of order and greasy tractor parts. Who says that city council meetings are not interesting?

B-N-B tries to bail out his BFF this morning. Epic Fail.

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As you know, I have been enjoying listening to Bad Neighbor Belfrage and Too Late Todd before the November elections and have continued. Greg’s bat shit crazy conservatism and commentary from his frequent 4 callers or so have me in stitches. You have to admit, Greg has got it down to a science; when you don’t know your topic - lie, bully or deceive.

Most of the time he gets away with it, but this morning, he got a good ribbing and dug himself a hole.

He posed a question yesterday on I think his twitter account asking what Mayor Mike Huether’s future plans should be? The response was 40% Retire, 16% become a tennis pro, and the remainder was split between Congress and Governor.

B-N-B thinks Hizzoner is going to run for Governor. I think that is what he wants you to think, I still think he is aiming for Congress.

Besides the first caller praising him, and thinking after running for Governor he should run for President (I think I threw up in my car) it went all down hill after that.

What Greg doesn’t realize is that his callers are neo-cons for the most part, and they don’t like a spend happy person like Mike.

Greg of course started to dig the hole before he had his first caller by saying we voted on an indoor pool. He got corrected several times using the old mantra that ‘by voting against an outdoor pool you were voting for an indoor pool’. As a caller pointed out, ‘But that isn’t what was on the ballot’. Many people called in berating the Mayor for spending too much during his tenure (true), bullying his projects thru without consensus (also true), and the one I liked the most was comparing him to Obama (ah, that is a stretch).

If I could have stopped laughing for a few minutes, I would have called in and made my opposition to Huether running for future office very simple, He is a liar. And B-N-B has no problem helping the mayor peddle those lies.