Rex Rolfing
Sioux Falls City Council anoints a new Dr. No
Meet the Council’s new Dr. No
Well, Rex Rolfing has been working on it for awhile, and after voting against recording the Park Board meetings tonight (Erpenbach also voted no) he has cemented the deal. He also wanted to vote against gifting the Glory House city land, but realizing he was out numbered he voted for it.
I want to say bravo to the city council for standing up for transparency in government tonight. It’s easy to do the right thing. There really is no excuse for closed government. Heck, even at one point, Rolfing suggested we should be fair and record all board meetings (but didn’t offer an amendment) he was just being cynical as usual.
All ‘Councilors’ should be involved in the hiring of a new internal auditor
Trust me, I will find us a new auditor.
This is what happens when you don’t involve everyone;
A hiring committee looking to fill long-time internal auditor Rich Oksol’s position is headed back to the drawing board after passing on more than a dozen candidates who wanted job.
Yet councilors didn’t get to see these candidates resumes or interview them;
But the process in which the hiring search is being conducted isn’t sitting well with some city officials who say they’re being left out of the process.
Councilor Theresa Stehly said aside from councilors serving on the three-member search committee, which is composed of Rolfing, Council vice-chair Rick Kiley and one at-large member of the audit committee, the council has been kept in the dark regarding the hiring search.
“I was under the assumption that when we hired someone new there would be several resumes to review – or at the very least we’d review the top three or four and maybe interview those people,†she said. “But I don’t think that’s how this is playing out.â€
Although the final selection does require approval from the full council, Stehly said the search committee will make a selection and ask the Council for an up or down vote of approval.
So what is Rolfing’s response to the lack of transparency and due process;
No matter what that ends up looking like, it’s not likely to include every city council member in the process, he said.
“We’re in the process of developing that so there won’t be any questions later on,†he said. “It’s not something that you do with eight or 10 people on a committee. It just doesn’t work well that way.â€
How would you know if you never tried it? This clown will say anything to protect the secrecy of this appointment.
Some say simply ‘questioning’ Wiley’s business practices was out of line. Really?
What short memories people have. Only four years ago, the city council threatened to pull a license for the Vault and put them on warning with a deferral when similar things were going on (city council meeting) and (My post on it) at their establishment that have been going on at Wileys. In fact, after watching the meeting (the discussion went on for 35 minutes), besides the diddling on the cars, the things going on at the Vault pales in comparison to Wileys. It came down to basically not supplying adequate parking. How many private parking spots does Wileys have? I count ZERO. It is also important to note that the Vault had 154 police calls in a 12 month period. In 10 months of this year, Wileys is up to 182 calls. The deferral meeting is here (FF: 11:00). If you watch the meeting, you will see councilors had several meetings with the Vault and the Police department before the vote. Councilor Jamison went on to say that these kind of ‘reviews’ of the establishments was important to establish a public record of the concerns. The council voted 7-1 to renew the license, Rolfing was the dissenting vote. I believe the Vault went out of business in 2013.
Also during the meeting, they try to beat down an immigrant c-store owner in Pettigrew Heights for letting people drink 40’s beside his store. The mayor even said this to the c-store owner’s attorney during the meeting;
“. . . it is the duty of the city council to review all liquor licenses that are up for renewal. If they want to complete some additional due diligence on any of these, whether it be the Vault, whether it be the Mercato or any of the other establishments that serve alcohol in this town, they have the ability to do that. In this case they wanted to ask some questions or do some additional due diligence on the Mercato before they make a decision on that, so before you start to accuse a councilor, or someone else for doing something that is appropriate or not, I would encourage you to use caution. . Â . Â . I would encourage you to tone it down a bit, the council has a right to ask questions.”
What a short memory our mayor has.
They also beat down a tattoo shop owner for simply wanting a beer license so he can sell during art opening events. And how many complaints has the shop had in the past four years? Not sure. But I would assume if it was major, we would have heard about it by now. I have displayed art at the shop and have attended many other events there. It was no different then an art opening at the Pavilion (which sells alcohol at their art openings). The council voted 4-3 to approve the license with Karsky, Rolfing and Aguliar dissenting.
Seems a bit hypocritical of Michelle and Mike to say they were embarrassed about the very short discussion last night, in which in the end 7 councilors voted to let them keep their license. Let’s talk about embarrassment. It’s embarrassing our city officials have such short memories when regulating liquor licenses.
I also find it ironic that Wiley’s attorney, Drew Duncan is a well known Municipal and State government lobbyist. Seems this story is a lot deeper then we may ever know.