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SF City Council

Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

Who Appointed the Sioux Falls 2035 Downtown Committee Members?

l3wis 4Comments

I will give you the short answer, Mayor Paul TenHaken (Item #25).

The City Council will vote on a resolution approving the committee and its members. I asked a city councilor if the council was asked by mayor’s office for input. They said they were not asked but not sure about the other council members. I think it is unfair to the council not to have input on at least half of the picks (there are 16 members).

While you go through the list you will notice people on it that have something to do with downtown businesses and organizations. Two of the members even previously worked at DTSF. But two of the members have incredible conflicts of interest with the mayor, Kevin Tupy (Cresten Capital Holdings) and Natalie Eisenberg (CEO of Click Rain).

Natalie’s conflict is obvious since she now runs the company that Paul founded, but Kevin’s is a little more tricky.

Kevin with one of his investment partners, Matt Paulson, threw tons of money at Alex Jensen’s campaign, so he is politically connected to the city using his wealth for influence. He has also been buying up property downtown like a madman so he financially connected to how DTSF is shaped. Ironically Paulson’s director of StartUP Sioux Falls, Brienne Maner, also is an appointee to the committee.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many people on the board who have some financial interest in DTSF, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is Tupy’s connections politically and financially that make this appear unethical.

What often frustrates me about Paul’s appointments is he doesn’t really extend out from his inner circle, his youth council showed that, where NO O’Gorman students sit on the council and most are kids of friends of his.

I would hope the council asks why they were not asked to participate and about the conflicts.

Elections SF City Council SF School Board Member SF School District Sioux Falls

PACs are being used to funnel big money into city elections by a handful of people

l3wis 7Comments

Before we get to the PACs dark money into our city elections an update on the races.

In the school board race there are 3 people circulating for the two seats. Baker and Reiter plan to run for re-election, and the 3rd person’s name escapes me, but it is a woman from the banking sector.

MATT PAULSON IS USING HIS PERSONAL WEALTH TO FUNNEL MONEY INTO THE RACES USING PACS

The first PAC that is doing this is Paul TenHaken’s PAC ran by his mentor Joel Dykstra, Next Generation (DOCS). Which has funneled money to Merkouris and Curt Soehl. Major Donors below;

But the big PAC is the one that seems to be funded almost solely by Matt Paulson, Falls Community Growth (DOCS). Paulson funneled $20,000 of his personal wealth (Half from himself and Half from his LLC) into the PAC and turned around under the shield of the PAC to donate $2,500 to Soehl (which explains why certain people have decided to NOT run against him, I won’t say names) and $5,000 to Barranco.

For the record, this is totally legal, it’s just a back door way for an individual with a lot of money to give thousands of dollars to candidates while not classifying it as an individual donation. It has been going on for years from donors like Sanford, Dykhouse and Lloyd.

As someone said to me yesterday, “It seems Mr. Paulson sees himself as a kingmaker.” Money can buy you a seat on the council, he helped pay Jensen’s rent and now he is all in on some more candidates.

abortion Donita Trump Noem Kristi Noem Separation of Church and State SF City Council State Legislature

House Speaker Gosch owns Noem

l3wis 7Comments

While I was glad to see Noem’s proposal on abortion killed (because there is already oodles of SCOTUS abortion litigation heading their way) I was more entertained by Gosch’s response to her crocodile tears;

“Look it wasn’t my intention to hurt anybody’s feelings in the way that things went but sometimes that happens in legislation right. Some people get really tied to their idea and it just doesn’t go their way,” said Gosch.

Gosch says he doesn’t dislike anyone

“But ultimately we are going we’ve got a lot of work to do and we are going to need to continue to work hard to accomplish what we need to accomplish without any sideshows or personal vendettas,” said Gosch.

“The intention wasn’t for feelings to get hurt we just have a job to do and I think we did it,” said Gosch.

In his statement Gosch said it is not the governor’s job to introduce legislation, she can only recommend language. He says the power to legislate is reserved to the legislative branch.

That last part is the best part. I often tell the city council they need to be the ones forming policy, NOT the mayor’s office. But most of them lack courage or the will to stand up to Poops. And they ain’t real hardworkers.

Speaking of abortion, this latest clip from Sam B weighs in on the possibility of having a right to an abortion using religious exemption. I loved what the Catholic said; ‘Freedom of Religion also means Freedom from Religion.’ Amen.

Mayor TenHaken Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Open Meetings Complaint against Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken being sent to the Open Meetings Commission for Review

l3wis 5Comments

UPDATE: There seems to be confusion from several people in the media about Haggar’s original letter, so another one was submitted to Sierra and the AG’s office. Basically Haggar is saying he does NOT have the authority to rule on this, BUT the Open Meetings Commission under the direction of the AG’s office does. It now will be up to the OMC to first determine if the complaint is viable to hold a hearing. This could take 6-8 weeks. If they determine that it is viable they will have a hearing on the matter. I’m not sure what certain reporters in the media are confused about? All Mr. Haggar did was review the complaint and he felt it needed to be passed on because it has merit, so that is what he did. At this point we just need to wait to hear from the OMC. That is the only story here.

Minnehaha States Attorney, Daniel Haggar has determined that it appears that city ordinance was violated when citizens were not allowed to publicly comment on two items pulled from the consent agenda (see statement below).

In Haggar’s LETTER he has chosen to send the complaint over to the Open Meetings Commission. Here is the original Complaint.

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