Commissioner Dick Kelly votes against re-electing chair

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If you watch the meeting from this morning (FF: 10:40) you will see why Kelly votes against re-electing Cindy Heiberger for chair. He felt it should go to a new person, then reminds the commissioners that Cindy voted against him two years ago. Not sure what that was all about, but Barth made light of the situation and said that while he felt he should be elected as chair, he would support Cindy. She was re-elected on a 3-1 vote and Beninga was elected co-chair.

The commission also voted to not give themselves a raise this year, while Barth’s recommendation of a 1% raise failed.

They also closed the open commission seat application process and said they had 29 applicants to choose from. That’s a lot of paper to shred 🙂

Minnehaha County Dems get their party on!

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party_democrat

On Monday, December 29th, 5-7 PM, the Minnehaha County Democratic Party will host a reception at the Falls Overlook Cafe at 825 N Weber Avenue in Sioux Falls to thank all of the Democratic candidates and volunteers, past and present, for their hard work and all past and present Democratic candidates will be honored for their hard work and dedication to the Party’s core values of Fairness, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunity.

Save the date and join your local Democratic officials as they celebrate everyone’s hard work and look to the future. Champagne and hor devours will be served. Tickets are $25.00 and they are available at the door.

Huether says government can be run like a business

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I have often shaken my head when Huether suggests this. They are not the same, for several reasons.

To my surprise I found this page in a booklet I was reading from the SD Association of County Commissioners. The booklet is called ‘So You Want to Be A County Commissioner’.

I thought the one page was very concise in explaining the differences.

The middle part that I highlighted actually intrigued me the most. While they are referencing County Government, I think Municipal Government would apply. Notice ‘Sharing decisions’, ‘Public involvement’ and ‘Public Eye’.

Huether prefers to run the city like a business because he doesn’t like to share the ball with the city legislators, the council, or the general public. He acts as the CEO of the city instead of a fellow lawmaker.

I want to remind Mike, once again, that government and business ARE not alike.

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Minnehaha County Commission appoints election review commission

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Before I go into it about how this has turned out to be a total Kangaroo Kourt, the appointments;

Kea Warne (Public Employee, SD Department of Ag, former Elections Supervisor for the SOS)

Lorie Hogstad (Public Employee, Sioux Falls City Clerk)

Bruce Danielson (Citizen)

Sue Roust (Former auditor and elected official)

Joel Arends (Citizen, attorney)

Julie Pearson (Pennington County Auditor)

Deb Elofson (Citizen, Minnehaha County Democratic Party, Political director at Craft & Associates)

When they originally discussed how this process was supposed to go, Commissioner Kelly recommended that NO elected officials sit on this commission, which I agree, but as you can tell, they threw the bath water out with the baby, and have several former and current elected officials and public employees REVIEWING themselves. That seems fair 🙁

I was originally asked by Jeff Barth to be on the commission, and I accepted his invitation, but when he relayed that information to county administrators they had to call a whaaabulance about Jeff’s choice, so he chose someone else.  The commission is so lucky they have administrators making choices for the commissioners, kind of reminds me of the directors telling city councilors what to do. I told Jeff I wanted to serve to keep a record more then anything about the proceedings, not to make a mockery of it. I also think I have covered enough of these elections to know what has and hasn’t work. When super precincts were first introduced by city clerk Owen, I saw the potential for problems, and there were, they promised those kinks would be worked out, but they haven’t, they have only made the process confusing. The first proposal I would bring to the table is the elimination of super precincts and a common election process within our city.

Besides Debra, Joel and Bruce, this Kourt seems to be stacked with people who cannot possibly give a fair assessment of the situation. There are several defenders of the SOS’s office, Bob’s office and the offending software supplier ES & S, not to mention defenders of our very clunky government processes when it comes to elections. Elections are NOT about saving money or new fangled devices, they are about fairness.

The findings should be interesting.

UPDATE: Who will apply to be on the Minnehaha County Commission

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UPDATE: Yesterday the commission decided they will be accepting applications and resumes until December 31 for the appointment job. There was some discussion on whether they should appoint a ‘caretaker’ or basically a ‘seat warmer’. This of course was Dick Kelly’s idea, and Cindy pretty much said that was a bad idea, and they should appoint someone who is prepared to do the job in the fullest for the next two years, and if they want to run again, that would be fine.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4It5tf-y5Uo[/youtube]

I found out yesterday that Dean Karsky has withdrawn his name and said he is NOT seeking the appointment, but expressed interest in running for the seat in two years when he is term limited from the city council.

Mark Millage has also told me that he is not interested in the appointment either.

I’m not sure who the ‘ten’ people are, but it should be interesting when those names are released.

In other County news, it seems that the commission is backing out on their set of rules for picking an election review commission. The names I have heard so far are either elected officials, past elected officials or public employees. Bad idea. This commission should be citizen driven, NO elected officials, NO public employees and NO past officials BIAS to the process. Looks like another Kangaroo court.

I also have some other inside information about the formation of the commission that I will share AFTER the appointments. Let’s just say the cattle wrangling has already begun.