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Sioux Falls

Elections Greg Neitzert SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Councilor Neitzert’s donation list; Quid Pro Quo?

l3wis 6Comments

Okay, I jest. I’m not comparing Greg to Donnie boy, but there are some strange similarities between who cut Greg checks and certain votes he has cast over the past 4 years.

You may not recognize some of these names, but if you look at the ones highlighted, they have all benefited from some of the stances and votes Neitzert has taken. Kirby Muilenberg especially stands out, with all his convoluted VL Casino ordinances.

At least with Alex Jensen, he hasn’t cast any votes yet on the council, but Neitzert’s donor list screams ‘follow the money.’

While I don’t support his candidacy this time around, because he turned his back on his promise of open and transparent government, I think Neitzert could easily be re-elected simply based on his incumbency, and he really didn’t need to raise this kind of money. Like Jensen, I think the establishment Republicans are using Greg as a strange experiment of trying to control non-partisan local governments in our state, and it makes me a little sick to my stomach.

TenHaken’s goofy PAC also gave $250 towards Neitzert’s campaign. I guess the Man-Children need to stick together.

Keep your eye on Greg though, his re-election may not be such a ‘sure thing’. There are also some powerful forces behind his opponent that are working hard behind the scenes, and I’m not talking about the small donation from Randy Seilor.

For the record, I am NOT involved with any city council races as of today. That may change, but I may be sitting this one out.

UPDATE: Ironically Greg posted this on FB two days ago. I guess he knows me well. He also knows I know him very well . . . Nothing like killing the messenger before I even show up to the forum 🙂

Hey Greg, it’s kind of hard to respond to an online attack that didn’t happen for another two days. And really, it’s not an attack, it’s the truth.
County Commission Daniel Haggar Minnehaha County Sioux Falls

Minnehaha State’s Attorney race; battle of the city attorneys

l3wis 1Comments

Paul Bengford already announced. Now his co-worker, Daniel Haggar has announced;

Daniel currently serves as an Assistant City Attorney in Sioux Falls, managing the Human Relations Division and serving as the city’s ADA Coordinator.

I don’t know Daniel personally, but if the name sounds familiar, it should. Daniel is the Son and Brother of former legislators Don and Jenna Haggar. I’m not sure if Daniel shares the same political views of his father and sister, but if he does we should be very worried about him as a State’s Attorney.

Daniel Haggar replaced Colleen Moran who was mysteriously ‘dismissed’ from the city attorney’s office. Nobody knows if she resigned or was terminated by TenHaken, but we have our guesses.

Hopefully someone else will get into this race, because as of right now, it looks dire. The Minnehaha County Commission is set to appoint a permanent replacement of Aaron McGowan soon. There have been several applicants including Paul Bengford and interim State’s Attorney Crystal Johnson.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Jan 7, 2020

l3wis 1Comments

Informational Meeting, 4 PM

Presentations on the following (no PDF doc links to content);

• Water Reclamation Facility Improvements and Expansion Project Update

• Partner Organization Agreements (Sioux Falls Development Foundation, USD Discovery District, Downtown Sioux Falls, Southeast Technical Institute)

• Metro Communications 911 Center – Public Safety Training Center Partnership Discussion

Regular Meeting, 7 PM

Item #6, Approval of Contracts.

• (Sub item #2) It sure didn’t take long, Pavilion takes over the Orpheum and they are quick to spend our money on maintenance. $90K on the boilers.

• (Sub item #8) It seems taxpayers are on the hook for legal counsel on the TIF for Sioux Steel, for $6K. Shouldn’t this be paid for by the recipient of the TIF?

• (Sub item #17) The Convention center is getting over $400K in boiler replacement.

Item #42, Golden Gateway issue is back on the agenda for a 1st Reading.

Item #43, REPEALING THE ORPHEUM THEATER ADVISORY BOARD OF DIRECTORS. Now that the Pavilion has taken over the Orpheum, they will no longer have a citizen advisory board. This is unfortunate.

Item #51, Audit Report, Landfill Licensing. This will be an interesting topic of conversation.

Alex Jensen Elections SF City Council Sioux Falls Theresa Stehly

UPDATE II: Mysterious LLCs donate $2,500 to Jensen’s campaign

l3wis 17Comments

UPDATE II: Here is an updated Jensen donor list with references to the businesses/employment the donors are associated with.

This is even better where it breaks down it down into donor groups.

Besides the fact that Alex has gotten $10,000 from Dennis Dopey our former governor, he also raked in big contributions from local developers and banksters in town. READ FULL REPORT.

Less than 7% was small donations of $100 or less.

But one of the most interesting contributions came from a list of 3 LLC’s ran by this guy, Kevin Tupy. They all have the same PO box address at the UPS store. I always get a kick out of how people try to hide their identity when giving to political campaigns or wiggling around the rules. If Tupy gave individually he would have only been able to give $1,000 but this little trick was able to put his contribution up to $2,500 while hiding his identity. Notice he did NOT give an individual donation.

Even more interesting is that Mr. TenHaken’s PAC did not give any money to Jensen. No worries, I’m sure he will be plugging money into it the second round of fundraising because that report won’t come out until right before the election.

Even though Jensen has raised a lot of money, I’m curious when he will actually be campaigning? Even if Stehly does not run (I think she will) wouldn’t you want to be campaigning in case you have another challenger? I have heard NOTHING about his stances on the issues. Does he have any? People have told me he knows little about city government and will get mopped by Stehly in any forum or debate.

I still believe Stehly can beat Jensen by at least 6 points without spending a single penny. And if she does, there is going to be a lot of sore LLCs and PACs in town 🙂

UPDATE: I also find it interesting that $18,000 in donations came from out of Sioux Falls ($10K-Daugaard, $8K from other towns). Mostly from High Profile Republicans and PACS, this tells me they are making this race partisan. While I did see a ‘couple’ of the donors are indies or Dems, that I know of, this is about getting an ‘establishment’ Republican elected. Stehly, though a Republican, has always performed her roll non-partisan (because, that is what the seat is). I think there are people in the party who want to kick her out, but I also know there are many that like her.

There was a recent Argus article/survey it asked people to identify local politicians, media, celebrities, etc. Theresa was on the survey, she got 44% of people being able to recognize her. Christine Erickson was on the survey to, she got 26%. Would have been interesting to see Jensen and Huether on the list.

SF Councilor Theresa Stehly 44%

Governor Kristi Noem 90%

Sen. John Thune 85%

Sen. Mike Rounds 83%

Rep. Dusty Johnson 80%

Mayor Paul TenHaken 75%

Councilor Christine Erickson 26%

SFSB President Cynthia Mickelson 21%

Lt. Governor Larry Rhoden 15%

I told a friend last night that if Stehly decides to run, the best move by Alex would be to drop out, send the donations back and save himself the embarrassment.

Paratransit Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Transit Transportation

Sioux Falls Transportation MPO meeting happening on Jan 14

l3wis 2Comments

I encourage people to attend this meeting on transportation;

The MPO is holding this meeting on Tues. January 14th from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at the Downtown Library.

I also received this email about some of the plans for public transit in Sioux Falls, and concerns (I edited the content to be more specific);

The Planning Department suggested to have bus rapid transit from downtown to the Events Center and than to the Pentagon FARE-free, for conventioneers, sports fans, tourists, but NOT our most fragile residents.

As I have mentioned before, we must first fix paratransit and make it easier to use, faster, city-wide, and yes, more affordable before we start tackling who can get to the dead zone called the Events Center campus or a Skyforce game. It seems this town has plenty of money for those who already have the means to pay for their own transportation but not for the less fortunate. Do I think public transit for everyone should be totally FREE? No. But I do think we can provide better service and make it extremely affordable to almost FREE. We need to concentrate on the economic impact of public transit and getting people to work. If we can provide an efficient, hassle free and affordable way to get people to work the economic impact of it would pay for itself. While we are dinking around with TIFs for parking ramps and bailouts of historical movie theaters we are neglecting the people who make this city spin, OUR WORKERS of every economic stripe and status.

SHAKE, MY, HEAD.

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