South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Sioux Falls

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.

1st Amendment Catholics Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Catholic Schools attack teacher’s 1st Amendment rights

l3wis 11Comments

I will have to commend the local media who have decided to cover this very important story. But let’s make no mistake, while the story is partially about gay rights, equality, employee rights, religious freedom and quite honestly, reality, the bigger story is that this teacher’s 1st Amendment rights were spit on by her employer;

“It was very evident that everybody that I talked to at the school cared a lot about their students, regardless of their orientation,” Hickman said. “But it seemed that once I put something on my personal social media, that’s when it became a problem.”

Employee contracts aside and the Catholic’s church stance on homosexuality, this is about a bigger issue; the rights of an American citizen to express their view on any topic outside of work without being pressured by their employer to STFU!

Three months later, she says she was called into a meeting at O’Gorman and was asked to take the post down.

“I left that meeting stating I don’t feel comfortable doing anything about the post when I don’t understand why you’re asking me to do this,” Hickman said.

She then received a letter from Kyle Groos, President of the Bishop O’Gorman schools. It says Hickman’s post ‘promotes beliefs about lifestyle and sexuality that are inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.’

This is close to my heart, being politically involved as I am, many employers I have had struggled with my private political life. I had to remind them that my private life and my political beliefs were none of their business, and I must have been successful, because none of them terminated me because of it, some actually defended me, and I only quit one job because of it (lead usher at the Washington Pavilion).

NO EMPLOYER can fire an employee for their personal beliefs outside of work. It is a blatant violation of their 1st Amendment rights. And while Ukrainians fight for their sovereignty I am reminded that we live in an incredible FREE nation and no one can take that away from us. Bravo to Rachel Hickman for taking a stance. Our rights as free citizens should never be questioned or punished, that is called fascism, because last I checked we live in a free country and the SFCS should be ashamed and admonished, especially an institution that is educating young adults.

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