I was a little disappointed, I thought Kris was going to show us how to make her favorite cocktails. Why this person wasn’t thrown out of the legislature on her behind is beyond me. I would also note that someone running for re-election should not be using a taxpayer funded platform like this. But once again the ethics rules don’t apply to Republicans in this state, because they didn’t do anything ‘illegal’. Freaking Clowns.
When I first saw this article, I thought maybe it was an Onion parody;
Paul TenHaken, Sioux Falls mayor (R): He has carefully balanced South Dakota’s resistance to mandatory restrictions with the public health needs of his city, where a Smithfield pork processing plant became a hot spot. He enacted a measure that “strongly encourages†people to stay at home, but decided against an order.
I also find it interesting they put the (R) behind his name considering the mayor of Sioux Falls is a non-partisan position.
He has blamed everyone else and made excuses all along the way as to why he couldn’t lead on this. Here are some memorable moments;
• Twice mentioned he didn’t sign up for this. I think the second time around he said in a press conference, “This Sucks!”
• Failed to use manuals in place to deal with this crisis (I have heard from several past city officials that they do exist).
• Failed to get his health department to do proper inspections of businesses and give them a hand up in helping them prepare a safe work environment.
• Blames the Governor, the Legislature, his own city attorney and others why he cannot lead.
• Has butt heads in private and public meetings with the city council than turns around and puts the decision making in their laps.
• Has thrown transparency out the door by having executive sessions that don’t pertain to the criteria of having them.
I have argued from the beginning, as the city’s administrator, as the charter dictates, he has the power to force his city directors and health department to take action. He doesn’t need the blessing of the city council, the mayor, the legislature, his health board, city attorney or even the president to do it. He has the executive authority to enforce health ordinances on the books. And I think if he would have taken some of those measures early on, we wouldn’t be where we are at. I even think some if not most of restaurants could have stayed open if he would have set those guidelines early.
But we really can’t wrestle with the past, but we can take measures moving forward. A new report came out today from the White House that the midwest will be hit the hardest over the next two months because we were the last to start having outbreaks. Letting up now won’t end well for us. I would ask Paul to start leading, but I’m afraid it is too late for that. Hold on tight folks, it is going to be a rough summer.
It’s been a few weeks since I have done this because the meeting schedules have been all over the map. Just a reminder also that the 2nd reading of the Covid ordinance to allow bars and restaurants to reopen is on Thursday, May 7 (10:30 AM). If passed, it won’t go into effect until Friday, May 8. Several bars and restaurants seemed to have opened over the weekend. Not sure if they understand that the ordinance has not passed yet. I wonder if there will be any enforcement this week?
Informational Meeting • Wed May 6 • 4 PM
SPECIAL NOTE: Funny how Mayor TenHaken is calling it a ‘Work Station’ instead of a ‘Precinct’. Gee, would it have anything to do with him attacking Jolene’s plan during the mayoral campaign of creating police precincts? What a tool . . .
• New Governmental Lease Standards and Southwest Police Report to Work Station presentation
Regular City Council Meeting • Wed May 6 • 7 PM
SPECIAL NOTE: Notice that the State Theatre will be asking for a wine license. I hope the owner of West Mall shows up and tells them about their hypocrisy if they pass this. I’m sure it has the 4-5 votes to pass. But I do suspect a couple of councilors to vote against it. I’m sure we will hear about all the extra steps they will be taking to ensure minors are not drinking, you know, just like the owner of West Mall promised.
SPECIAL NOTE II: I heard that Councilor Erickson is planning on running for mayor. This probably confirms the rumor that TenHaken will run in a primary against Noem for Governor in 2022. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around these rumors, because I have seen these two clowns do some weird crap over the past couple of years, but it would not surprise me. I think a race between Erickson and Huether would be fun to watch. Get out the popcorn.
Item #6, Approval of Contracts, Sub Item #15, Meals for Isolation Sites. Shouldn’t this be an expense of the County, the State or the Feds?
Sub Item #19, over $100K to fix the retention pond at the Denty. I wonder if they are fishing out bad siding? This place is the biggest money pit this city will ever see.
Item #18, Wine license for State Theatre.
Planning Commission Meeting • Thursday May 7 • 6 PM
Item 5B, Woody’s Bar is planning an expansion.
I will only briefly say that if this is passed next week, we have few options if the cases spike drastically, we will be stuck with our bad decision. I still think we should extend until May 15. I also have seen several restaurants and bars already operating like this passed on Friday. One downtown bar has been operating all thru this. I saw several cars at their establishment last night. I also saw people dining on the patio at a restaurant downtown over lunch with a server waiting on them.
What I found interesting about the council discussion is everyone brought up business owners and patrons rights, but no one brought up the rights of workers. If you were on unemployment right now (and actually making more money) would you want to risk getting Covid while making less money? Hell NO! Funny how no one brought this up in the meeting except Starr. If these businesses have taken out PPP loans (grants) and their employees are on unemployment, what is the mad rush to reopen?
Our Sioux Falls Board of Ethics once again found a way on April 30, 2020 to NOT do their job and they decided to do it in a private, secret (questionably legal) Executive Session. Our City Attorney’s office has decided, any time there is a decision to be made by a board requiring a discussion with a city attorney; it will be done in private. On top of that, the decision was decided in the secret meeting and then makes it look legal, by voting on it unanimously after the secret session ends.
The Board of Ethics seems to have a problem. The Board of Ethics is not created to decide law. The members are to be stellar members of Sioux Falls community who are charged with helping find the right solution to sticky questions. The body was setup years ago to deal with ethical issues employees and elected officials are faced with.
In theory, the board has two functions:
The complaint 20-A was filed March 4th, 2020 and had to be heard by the Board of Ethics within 60 days or by May 4th. This confidential complaint was held off as long as legally possible and then was dealt with (for the first time known) in a completely private manner in violation of South Dakota Open Meetings laws. Not only was it held in a completely secret manner, it also found a way to violate the Open Meeting laws by having the normal jurisdiction discussion and vote in secret without public or interested party testimony.
So why was this board meeting held? Councilor Greg Neitzert proudly took a trip to Texas in October of 2019. Why should we care? Well there is a story to go with it that should make every voter and citizen of Sioux Falls question not only what is fitness for office but our system of ethical review.
Neitzert wrote in an email sent from the meeting “I wanted to make sure to note and be clear, I was invited by them, as was Mayor TenHaken, to attend.â€Â He also stated “They booked all of it and paid all costs. Nothing was booked or coordinated by the city, our Council office, no city funds, resources, or staff time was involved, and there is no travel forms or city reimbursement. I worked directly with the organization that took care of everything and sent me the hotel and flight reservations.“
In other words, he received a junket trip for “free†and then claimed erroneously “They consider themselves a similar concept to the National League of Cities, and so far it has been, just on a smaller scale.†Neitzert seems to be confused here, the National League of Cities is a truly non-partisan membership organization versus the partisan Republican tax-exempt [501(c)(4)] shadow organization who invited Greg Neitzert and Paul TenHaken to Frisco, Texas to learn how to use their positions to make Sioux Falls city government a political party based entity.
The organization, called Community Leaders of America (527) and their Forum for Community Leaders (FCL) (501(c)(4)) uses their tax-exempt status to train future party leaders. Part of their mission statement clearly spells it out:
The Forum for Community Leaders (FCL) comes alongside Republican local leaders in their constant effort to….
The FCL is a political lobbyist organization privately funding gullible local officials with trips to places in order to win over their allegiances, decisions and votes. In other words only Republicans attend.
To add to the problems with the meeting, the attorney’s office did not have a complete agenda when they “missed†having Public Input on the official agenda. The Chair decided to deal with this infraction by announcing at meeting close there would be Public Input. The problem here? South Dakota law requires complete agendas 24 hours in advance of the meeting start. Do you remember the City Council agenda problem from a few years ago when the Clerk “forgot†to post the agenda as required by Ordinance and they called the special meeting with the regular agenda at the regular time? Here we go again.
How do we answer these questions:
Watch the video and decide if we really need to waste our time with the Board of Ethics in its current form.
l3wis