South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

SF City Council

Janet Brekke Patrick Starr SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Councilors Starr and Brekke present ordinances for more transparency

l3wis 5Comments

There is actually some positive legislation on the city council agenda that costs citizens $0 (so I’m sure there is plenty of money left over from 2021 to fund it 🙂 Pat and Janet are sponsoring two ordinances that address more transparency when it comes to keeping ordinances simple and transparent legal advice.

Item #44 is a clean up measure from state law;

(d) For the purposes of implementing SDCL 9-19-7.1, “substantially alters” shall mean
alterations to a proposed ordinance so significant as to amount to a new proposal from that
which was noticed and heard.

Basically this calls for ordinances to be easily understandable and if they get so complicated and are multi-subject they have to be broken up into separate ordinances (this is how it was explained to me).

Item #45 is self explanatory;

(k) The mayor or any member of the city council may request an official opinion of the city
attorney or a memorandum of legal advice that is not privileged pursuant to SDCL 1-25-2.
Such opinion or memorandum of legal advice shall be open to the public for inspection and
copying. The original opinion or memorandum of legal advice shall be filed with the city
clerk. An official opinion or a memorandum of legal advice shall not be issued on any
matter described in SDCL 1-25-2. The city attorney also reserves the right to deny a request
for an official opinion or a memorandum of legal advice request. Requests for an official
opinion shall not be unreasonably denied, and all denials shall be in writing stating the legal
or policy reason(s) for the denial and shall be filed with the city clerk.

This one will likely get a majority of council support. Basically they are asking the city attorney’s office to issue opinions, due it in a timely manner and make those opinions open to the public.

I guess several councilors have been irked that City Attorney Kooistra’s attitude towards councilors inquiries have been either ignored or denied. Kooistra seems to have one master and they are fed up with it.

As lead city attorney, they must not only serve the mayor and city departments in general but the city council.

I will defend Kooistra on one aspect of his behavior; he probably has denied opinions because he doesn’t know WTF he is talking about.

Denny Sanford Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

Can I borrow Mayor TenHaken’s Crystal Ball?

l3wis 3Comments

Even though the State Legislature, at this point, has shot down funding the DSU Cyber project in Sioux Falls, it hasn’t stopped Poops from putting it on the Council’s Tuesday’s agenda for first reading (Item #43)

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, PROVIDING SUPPLEMENTAL
APPROPRIATIONS TO SUPPORT CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF THE
DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY APPLIED CYBER RESEARCH LAB LOCATED IN THE
SIOUX FALLS CYBER INNOVATION PARK IN THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS.
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD:

1. That the Mayor has certified that there are available for appropriation unassigned fund
balances carried forward from prior years or revenues in excess of those estimated in the
budget to provide funding to supplement the 2022 budget.

Oh, so he has ‘certified’ that the money is there . . . even though the council has yet to see a 2021 financial report, kind of like the $2.5 million laying around for employee bonus vote bribes.

Also notice there is NOTHING in the ordinance that says this funding shall dissolve if the state doesn’t pony up. No worries, Fortune Teller Fart Smeller Poops looks into his crystal ball and in an email to council said this;

The funding allocations are nearly complete in Pierre and, despite a small road bump this week
with House Appropriations, I am confident both funding bills in the legislature will be passed.

So now Paul somehow knows that the legislators will revisit this before the end of the session and approve the $30 million? Hey, he may be right, but if I was a betting man . . .

I still recommend that someone on the council amends the funding before the 2nd reading and inserts a clause about dissolving the funding if the state funding doesn’t materialize. And if that happens, let Denny and his banksters pay 100% for something that only really impacts their wealth and investments to begin with.

Downtown Sioux Falls Elections Jim Burzynski Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

Is Candidate TenHaken using city resources to promote his race?

l3wis 0Comments

While there is certainly nothing wrong with having the mayor’s column on the city website, as a candidate he really should be refraining from posting a column until after the election. State law;

• SDCL 12-27-20. Expenditure of public funds to influence election outcome prohibited. The
state, an agency of the state, and the governing body of any county, municipality, or other
political subdivision of the state may not expend or permit the expenditure of public funds for the
purpose of influencing the nomination or election of any candidate, or for the petitioning of a ballot question on the ballot or the adoption or defeat of any ballot question. This section may
not be construed to limit the freedom of speech of any officer or employee of the state or any
political subdivision who is speaking in the officer’s or employee’s personal capacity. This
section does not prohibit the state, its agencies, or the governing body of any political
subdivision of the state from presenting factual information solely for the purpose of educating
the voters on a ballot question.

Paul says this in the opening line of the column;

As our community grows and new residents call Sioux Falls home, our community’s cultures, traditions, and experiences also continue to become even more vibrant.

That is an editorialized opinion of the mayor. If the column just presented statistics on diversity, I would say it was okay. Doesn’t it seem odd that all of sudden after almost 4 years on the job he seems to be embracing diversity when in 2020 when the Covid outbreak at Smithfield occurred he attributed it to poor hygiene of immigrants.

It doesn’t surprise me he continues to pretend he did something over the past 4 years besides socialist handouts to welfare developers and failed bunker ramps. In less than 40 days from an election he is suddenly concerned about diversity, affordable housing, childcare, employee bonuses and bringing in high tech cyber jobs. I would have to agree with Poops when he says he is NOT political, he has certainly shown us that during his first term he has failed as a politician.

But Poops isn’t the only one walking the fine line. Central District Candidate Jim Burzynski had a petition signing event either presented or sponsored by the All Saints Neighborhood Association. Neighborhood associations that are registered with the city and receive taxpayer grants cannot help or promote candidates. They can have forums, but all candidates must be invited.

David ZoKaites Elections Media Patrick Starr SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Mayoral Candidate Zokaites gets cut off by Council Dictator Kiley

l3wis 4Comments


Besides the fact that the city council folded like a wet paper bag when it came to poorly researched and negotiated employee retention bonuses (or was it about inflation? Proving the absurdity of city employee vote bribes? Or trying to humiliate Brekke, you know, the councilor they are unethically hosting fundraisers for her opponent) there was some other fireworks at last night’s meeting.

During public input Mr. Science and All around Know-it-All Councilor Ricky Lee Kiley cut off David Zokaites because of his presentation about allowing Mayor Poops a Freebie 2-hour interview on KELO AM. Ironically, I saw the presentation before the meeting (posted below), and all David was going to say is that KELO and Poops did nothing wrong and it was permissible by the FCC. Yup, he was going to defend the Mayor, at least on the law, but NOT the ethics.

Kiley was within his rights to ask David to stop the presentation and David did the right thing by ending it. As a candidate for office you are NOT allowed to talk about that candidacy at the podium during public input, and that is where David crossed a line . . .  kind of. I’m just curious why the council’s COS and City Clerk did not catch the violation when they pre-approved David’s PPT before the meeting?

Ironically, Poops violates ethical standards of running for office almost daily. From using insider information on concerts at the Denty, to tweeting candidate commercials while running a meeting, posting endorsements (that are missing a PAID FOR STAMP) on his supposed personal FB page and using most media interviews to promote his candidacy while telling everyone he is not a politician (but plays one on TV).

While Kiley was right that David was in the wrong, I’m just wondering when Poops will start following the same campaign ethical standards? Not in our lifetime.

CITY OF SIOUX FALLS HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT HIRES A COUNSELING AGENCY THAT EMPLOYEES A CONVICTED FEDERAL CRIMINAL

The real fun stuff was at the beginning of the meeting when councilor Starr asked why the city is hiring Key Solutions whose director/counselor recently got charged with Federal crimes;

Tami Haug-Davis, 64, of Sioux Falls, was ordered to pay $15,000 restitution, serve one year of probation and serve 40 hours of community service for making a materially false statement regarding minutes of board meetings during a federal investigation of the Missouri Valley Crisis Center.

Our director of HR, Bill Dah’Toole said to the council last night, they got reassurance that she wouldn’t do bad things anymore. You know, like when we picked Lamont to complete the bunker ramp. Starr had made them aware in advance of her record, and instead trying to find another counseling agency, they chose to double-down on their very stupid decision, and 6 of the 8 councilors agreed . . . of course they would, because that is the true definition of absurdity. Starr and Brekke voted NO. Erickson of course phoned in her VOTE since she is in Pierre lobbying at her other job. Must be nice to double-dip and have a council gig as a side hustle. I can’t even remember the last time I have seen her in person at a council meeting?

LIGHTS OUT!

But my favorite part at the meeting last night was when someone leaned against the light switches and turned off the lights in the Chamber. I’m sure they were all thinking cyber attack.

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