Is Pitty expecting a US Congressional run out of Huether?

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If that is the case, Pitty and I agree on something. It seems he is coming in early and hard on MMM before he even announces what he is running for;

What has Huether’s tenure been characterized by? Empire building, ego, and pontification.

Since early on, Huether ram-rodded through building projects, which often had the community sharply divided; The Denny Sanford Arena, a new indoor pool, and most recently, a new city administration building.  But alongside that, we’ve been constantly reminded of Huether’s massive and unabated egomania through such things as his top ten lists, as well as his infamous municipal ad campaign and billboards featuring.. himself.

It’s no secret Pitty is in Dusty’s corner and helping him out with the campaign. What I find kind of humorous is that if Mike’s thin skinned over a blog that is locally written about city government, wait until he has Pitty’s statewide blog dumping on him, day after day, he may quickly forget who Cameraman Bruce and Detroit Lewis are. I may be a little mean, but Pitty can get pretty vicious (he is a Republican after all).

Bruce says it best when it comes to MMM;

Pat, thank you for this. In the years we have worked to strengthen accountability in Sioux Falls we have run into roadblocks everywhere we turn. The city of Sioux Falls under Mike Huether has organized policies to limit more and more of our access to real or correct information. We fight for open government in Sioux Falls because the effort toward open government has to start somewhere. Mike Huether proved recently how little disregard he has for transparency when he vetoed public access to already recorded audio of the Park & Recreation Board meetings.
We started asking for real certified audits of construction programs because we found problems in methods and materials used on the construction of the event center. Mike Huether has told many versions of stories to justify what he and his administration has done, most not based on any version of acceptable facts.
Mike Huether and his Finance Director Tracy Turbak consistently tell us positive event center impact stories. They tell us the EC is pumping money into the community when in fact it has likely caused a negative impact exceeding $50,000,000 or more. The city will not allow us to see real numbers only their pasteurized and homogenized versions.
The crime rate issues we have here are the result of Huether’s boom town mentality where his special people have been isolated from the problems. The mayor recently realized we might have an issue then complained about crime issues when his neighbor’s garage was broken into. All of a sudden there is crime.
We have years of videos and stories freely available to the public to see what we have had to put up with. We freely share the stories to help you and your readers find out how a Huether government works. We do not trust him to even be standing next to us. I carry cameras when I am in his presence and then post the video on YouTube at www.siouxfall.org.
Several of us have believed the real crime issues started after the 2010 vote. This is why we speak and organize. This is why there are many in city hall who fear us. Just think about it, if you have been arrested, physically assaulted, verbally threatened by this administration and are still standing, what is there to fear by speaking the truth to power?

So will the Monkey on the mound mention the Elephant in the room?

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He’s got a big old plate of positive to serve up;

The City ended the year with $42.2 million in General Fund operating reserves, equal to 26.5 percent of budgeted expenditures. Originally budgeted to use $5.4 million in operating reserves in 2016, the City utilized only $1.4 million, a credit to prudent budgetary practices. Although sales tax revenue growth slowed to 3.4 percent, the Mayor’s office says Sioux Falls economy showed solid strength. At $701.9 million, construction permitting reached an all-time high last year. In 2016, Sioux Falls also celebrated the grand opening of the Midco® Aquatic Center, the groundbreaking for a $12 million hotel near the PREMIER Center, the completion of some monster infrastructure improvements in sanitary sewer and roads, and so much more.

The Mayor will outline the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the State of the City Address that takes place on Tuesday, March 28, at 2:30 p.m. at Carnegie Town Hall, 235 West Tenth Street. The public is encouraged to attend.

The bigger question is if he will address crime, drugs and transparency? Notice most of the things mentioned above either have ZERO impact on the average citizen’s bottom line OR actually costs us more in taxes.

Mayor Huether’s Nephew in Deep with Gear Up scandal

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The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

We’ve talked about Mr. Schoenfish in the past, he has been the mayor’s favorite nephew for quite awhile. Kyle received campaign donations from Uncle Mike when he first ran for the legislature as a Democrat, and after losing that race, he realized putting an ‘R’ behind his name was the winning ticket, Uncle High Crimes slipped him some more money that time to. Ironically, Mike left the Democratic party to, it’s a family thing I guess, when the going gets tough . . . the tough switches parties. I wonder if the ‘R’ behind Kyle’s name will be enough to save him this time?

It looks like he is finally going to see his day in court over being the auditor for Mid Central and Gear Up;

The Co-op, which is now defunct, is pointing fingers at its accounting firm which performed yearly audits for more than a decade.

It’s the accounting firm of a current lawmaker, Kyle Schoenfish. Schoenfish is a Republican representative from Scotland, SD.

It is also no secret that Kyle has been looked at from the beginning on the Gear Up investigation;

We looked at Schoenfish’s audit report on Mid Central from July of 2013 to 2014, right before the South Dakota Legislative audit found problems with GEAR UP.

Schoenfish said, “We identified certain deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses. It did find that over an eight year period “errors and omissions were noted in the annual finance statements prepared by cooperative officials.”   Mid Central promised to be more “accurate and complete” when preparing financial statements.

KELOLAND News tried to reach Kyle Schoenfish Tuesday for comment.  We’ll let you know when we hear back from him.

This isn’t the first time the accounting firm of Schoenfish & Company has been under scrutiny over not catching the misuse of GEAR UP funds.

An independent group of citizens has prepared a list of ten questions it would like lawmaker Kyle Schoenfish to answer and has submitted them to the South Dakota Auditor General.

They specifically ask about discrepancies in Mid Central’s balances and if Schoenfish ever reported them to anyone outside of Mid Central. We’ve posted those ten questions online on this story if you’d like to read them.

Maybe Stormland should be calling MMM, see what he knows? Too bad you couldn’t keep those audits secret like the Events Center siding settlement. I wonder if Uncle Hubris will come to the rescue of his favorite nephew if he is charged and faces jail time? Get Fiddle Faddle on it!

And this is how you don’t become lame

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He may have the tail, but he is dodging the title

Well doesn’t this quote say it all?

If you ask Huether, the added resistance hasn’t done much to curtail his agenda. He still only needs a simple majority to pass a budget and get contracts approved, he said.

“In the end, as long as we keep getting things done, that is what I care about,” he said. “I’m not trying to denigrate the Council in any way shape or form but it is the way that it works. And now I have found you can still get things done with three votes.”

Huether said no matter what the Council throws at him or how it responds to his ideas, he’ll continue to “run government like a business” while trying to find compromise with Sioux Falls’ other elected leaders.

I suppose I could write all kinds of thoughts on his thoughts, but for once, Mr. Huether was being honest about how he feels he needs to run the city.

And it’s a crying shame.

Huether fails to mention the skyrocketing crime problem in Sioux Falls

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In Mayor Huether’s ‘Home Stretch’ interview with Meti-Stormland-Sick Kids TV today he mentions all the things he plans to get done before he leaves office. In the entire interview there is NO mention of fighting crime.

 

Maybe Leland left it out, not sure, but it’s pretty pathetic to do an interview about your last 14 months in office and not mention ONCE the growing crime problem in SF.

One of the things the Mayor will have to deal with is slumping sales tax revenue. Huether says that issue will last past his time as Mayor, and will affect the next Mayor.

And like crime, he plans to pass it on. That’s leadership folks, GW Bush style.