Let’s talk about getting in the game early. I guess his treasurer, Matt Paulson wants to get a head’s up on the game. I guess it takes awhile to raise $100K.
You may remember when Alex was in the legislature, he had to move out of his district 12, but before he resigned that position he decided to take out papers to run in his new district 13, then he lost.
I was reminded of proposing a total transparency ordinance a year ago after talking to a city councilor yesterday. I was trying to tell them that while the little battles over open government have been slowly chipping a way at transparency, it is much more like going two steps forward and three steps back. I suggested that they propose a total transparency ordinance, and if it fails, keep bringing it back with tweaks until it does. Let’s face it, the city council has had over a year to come up with a permanent solution. I think they should ALL work on this together, first in a working session, operations committee and city council informational.
Right now all we have seen the past year is a back and forth game of what should be transparent and what should not. I have said in the past that there has never been a government body in SD who has gotten in trouble for being too transparent, so open it up and put it in writing (in the charter).
I guess we can continue to have the school yard fights over registration fees and book club meetings, but the council should really be looking for a semi-permanent solution to fixing transparency and communication, because until that happens, I’m not going to listen to the whining anymore.
Falls Park Master Plan, there is an online survey, the problem with the survey, while thorough, it makes you submit your home address to complete the survey. I find this a violation of privacy. I think a ZIP CODE should be good enough. As I said before, the city is gathering information on us as individuals. It’s creepy and sad.
Besides Councilor Stehly saying, “Wham, Bam, Thank You Maam†there was a lot of elitist eye-rolling and laughter going on when councilors Brekke and Stehly were making nominating speeches for their choice for Vice-Chair, Pat Starr. Of course, Neitzert got it, in a pre-determined vote, which gave them plenty of time to laugh at the nominating speeches since the fix was in.
I was watching from the comfort of my office at home, but from talking to citizens watching in the chambers, it was purely disgusting and disrespectful. It amazes me the level of disrespect the RS5 (Rubber Stamp 5) have for Pat and Theresa, especially after the entire city got to see how incredibly idiotic, careless, reckless, fiscally irresponsible and just plain stupid their votes were for the downtown parking ramp, in which none of them have apologized for, just said ‘oh well’ and blew it off. I also hear now that Mayor Selfie is looking for a competitor to Stehly.
Please forget about the mistakes of the past and elect me to leadership. Not only are they extremely arrogant and dysfunctional, they are in complete denial of their mistakes and stupidity. This is the worst city council I have seen in 15 years. Complete Losers and Failures. The ironic part was when Erickson and Neitzert were working with the minority, they were getting things done, but once the rules got changed for Air BNB and Erickson started rolling in the dough, she flipped, almost overnight. It may be time to implement a lodging tax on Air BNB.
Oh, but it gets better. At the city council informational meeting, the IT department (growing in employees with many of the other mayoral departments) requested to raise the tax for Midco and Vast from 2.5% to 6%. It took bringing up Midco’s attorney (thank you Theresa) to admit that that tax will just be passed onto the consumer and the communications companies won’t pay anything.
So our innovation manager’s greatest feat so far is a plan to tax us more for internet and cable. This is what a HS diploma will get you.