I have noticed that several people are now announcing for city races. As I watch this process I see several missteps. As a person who has directly worked with candidates on 5 winning campaigns I want to share some brief advice;
• Never run your own campaign or be your own treasurer. Have a campaign manager who has a winning record and experience.
• Never mention the party you are in unless asked directly (especially in a non-partisan race). I actually recommend people register independent before running in non-partisan races.
• Use your friends for volunteering and raising money do NOT use them for campaign advice (they will only tell you what you want to hear and will never give you critical advice).
• Spend money on a competent walking and mailing list.
• Knock on the doors of voters that wouldn’t normally vote for a candidate like you and keep notes of all your engagements (for revisits).
• Have a clear, simple and concise message and logo and find a good writer who will proofread and edit your materials and speeches.
• Make sure your website and other media works before you announce.
• Invite strangers and the press to engage you whenever possible and don’t keep secrets.
• Vet all of your skeletons before announcing.
• Don’t respond to negative or false information.
• Admit and apologize for any accusations that are true immediately and don’t dwell or play the victim.
• Never use your opponent(s) name when publicly discussing their failures. Pretend you are the only one in the race. Only offer new solutions to their bad policies.
• Target likely voters. Don’t waste money on billboards, yard signs, TV and Radio ads or EDDM mailings (Every Door Direct).
• Smile, stay upbeat and positive.
Read this book!
I have not been asked to help any candidate so far in this election cycle, but will likely be involved in a couple of the campaigns before the election but those candidates haven’t announced yet. If you want my help, I only have one request, you have to allow me to be ‘all in’ when it comes to strategy, and you have to be willing to take criticism (probably the main reason people didn’t ask me in the last city election 🙂
• The Audit Committeehas finally released some audits, been awhile. On Spectra (the people who provide concessions to several city owned entertainment facilities) they found a ton of non-compliance especially with insurance requirements. On the Midco Aquatic Center they have seen an over 50% drop in attendance since 2019 and around a 40% drop in revenue. They were also non-compliant on several fronts and like the Spectra Audit it seems our own Finance Department is not doing regular checks of compliance. For Travel expenses there was several instances of non-compliance. $137,000 travel reimbursements paid directly to travelers (city employees). Many of these results don’t surprise me. I have said the City Manager (The Mayor) is running a rudderless ship and when you have a poor city manager, it results in poor management under that person.
• The Planning Commission has decided to go full rogue by putting every single item on the consent agenda this month. Now items can be pulled for discussion by the Commission or Individuals from the public but I find this startling considering that all items are recommended for approval by the Planning Department and I am sure several Commission Members will recuse due to conflicts. Folks, this is what true cruise control government looks like. I am still puzzled why we even have a Planning Commission.
City Attorney’s office, Engagement Agreement for Human Relations Commission Review, Cadwell Sanford Deibert & Garry, LLP, Not to exceed $5,000
A concerned citizen asked a city councilor to pull this from the agenda for discussion and he not only refused to pull it, he refused to tell the citizen what it was about. Mind you, this is on a publicly posted agenda.
So why is an outside law firm reviewing the Human Relations Commission. I don’t know, but let’s make some guesses;
• The attorney running the department mysteriously disappeared and the replacement left to work for the county. Why?
• There has been several accusations that the commission (city) has been dismissing complaints for no reason.
• Was there a Federal complaint filed? The commission probably is funded by some Federal grants and has to follow certain Federal rules when it comes to the appeals.
As I understand it another city councilor has agreed to pull it from the consent agenda and have some one from the administration explain what this review is about.
At this point I won’t speculate, because I am just as curious as you.
I was a little surprised that a former state legislator and current city councilor could be so confused about how the city can apply TIFs. During his interview on KELO AM (Sept 21) Jensen says the city should use TIFs for affordable and accessible housing. Imagine my surprise, especially since Jensen gleefully voted for 3 TIFs totaling $144 million that have ZERO to do with affordable housing. But what he said about what needs to change really surprised me even more. Jensen said the state has to change laws in order to do that. Huh?
While the State could certainly do that, it is not necessary. As I have proposed, with Home Rule we can make our charter stricter than State Law, we just cannot violate the law;
Application for TIF will only be accepted for projects that will eliminate blight, build density in the core, and simultaneously provide affordable and workforce housing. Home rule charter allows the city to be stricter than state law.
There are three ways we could go about this change. The easiest would be the council just proposing the change and voting on it. That would be as simple as a presentation about the change and a 1st and 2nd reading. The next easiest would be my proposal above and have the CRC put the change on the ballot and let the voters make that change. There is also a 3rd option which would be the hardest and that would be to do a petition drive to get it on the ballot.
This is why Jensen’s statement baffles me. The Council and himself already have the power to make this change, we don’t have to wait for the legislature to do something. And if he really believed that TIFs should only be applied this way why did he vote for three that have to do with parking ramps, slush funds and Korean owned egg roll factories?
Talking out of both sides of your butt must be a vampire thing.
UPDATE: Jensen also touches on this during inside Town Hall. Alex offers some strange solutions to our housing shortages;
• Encourage people to live in our neighboring small communities. So basically he is telling people to come to SE South Dakota to work in Sioux Falls, but BTW, we don’t have any room for you in our town. So once you punch out, and go home please take those wages you made in Sioux Falls and pay your taxes in Tea or Brandon or Crooks.
I have suggested for over a decade you could do a pilot program in a core neighborhood in a 4-6 block radius. The city would fix the roads, water, sewer, curb, gutter, city owned sidewalks and lighting. You then could get the residents and property owners in that sector to sign onto a group tax incentive program thru community development to fix up the properties. Depending on income levels the help could be tax rebates or NO or LOW interest loans. As we have seen, the Mayor already has the discretionary power to that.
• Senator Jack Kolbeck brought up TIFs. Either Jack is naive or he is in on the scam, but he wants to get the TIF down to 0% for developers and eliminate excise taxes for them. He then says “So they can pass the savings down to the consumer/renter.” The tired old Reaganomics argument of trickle down. If you are giving the tax cut to the developer, the developer or contractor will simply put that money in their pocket. They know with the demand of housing in Sioux Falls they have NO reason to pass ‘savings’ on down to the consumer. The tax breaks should go to the consumer once the home is purchased. Trickle down DOES NOT WORK, we have proof of this with the enormous income gap that was created by these horrible policies.
• Jack also brings up expanding the prison built homes project to Sioux Falls prison. While I am all for this program, I think the inmates should get paid better for it, I also think they should have job guarantees in the industry when they get out and work it into their probation or parole.
I’m not saying the city needs to do this all at once or even change existing ordinances, just try a pilot program based on existing zoning and laws. Shape Places already fixed a hurdle that allows residential areas like this to either fix up or expand their properties. This isn’t rocket science folks. It’s what I told a friend the other day about the issues at the Dudley House. We have this desire in local government to re-invent the wheel and make things complicated while giving them fancy names. We don’t have to do that, we can get simple straight forward ideas from other communities on what works and we don’t even need to travel or pick up a phone to do it. You can get online and see thousands of projects. It just takes time, research and google. When I used to be a full-time graphic designer a fellow designer told me his secret to being so good, ‘90% of my ideas are stolen’.
Sorry David Z., we may have a crowded field in your race against Paul.
There have been rumors over the past week that there may be two more jumping into the mayoral race soon. I don’t have many details about either candidate except one is for sure.
Hopefully with more people jumping into the race it will encourage others to jump in. I would like to see it a 6 person race or more.
While I am not certain any candidate could beat Poops, we definitely need opponents who will point out his failures since he has been an Ineffective and Fiscally Irresponsible mayor. We all know Poops got elected from the strong White Wing Taupeville Republicans in the SE District. If a strong opponent can organize the Central, the NE and the NW they could beat him. But that is some heavy lifting.
Some people often ask me why I think Poops has been an awful leader, here is my short list 😊
• Massive secrecy and closed government.
• Assault on public commentary and input.
• Controlling the (lazy) media.
• Lack of leadership and cruise control government.
• Special interest/Lobbyist funded unethical trips.
• Tax handouts, incentives and TIFs to wealthy campaign donors.
• Disastrous Covid policies that have hurt our job market, housing and the economy.
• Not stopping the Bunker Ramp.
• Asking church volunteers to do the work of Public Works and FEMA.
• Authoritarian attack on Medical MJ dispensaries and possible illegal ordinances.
Paul got elected because he is a tall, white, male Republican Christian, not because of his qualifications, because the color blind graphic designer has proven he doesn’t have any.
If a strong challenger emerges, I will do everything in my power to help them overthrow Poops.
l3wis 
