Last I checked, I live in a Democracy

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I just sent off this email to the council and mayor;

Dear Mayor and City Councilors,
Trust me, it pains me to write this email. I would rather be sending off a quick note to all of you thanking you for approving the Spring 2013 election.

I do however want to thank councilors Jamison, Staggers and Anderson Jr. for realizing Tuesday night’s decision to vote YES was an easy decision when you stand up for democratic values and take an oath to uphold the US Constitution. The rest of you failed to recognize your constitutional duties, and just how easy they are. The Spring snowgate election SHOULD have been a slam dunk.

As for those of you who ignored the wishes of over 8,000 petition signers, I have no idea where to begin.

Why don’t we start with your ginned up false arguments and scripted questions to city directors (Karsky). One of your main arguments was hiring contractors in January for the following snow season. You say if we approve snowgates in the Spring of 2013 it would be after the hiring of contractors in January. So how is the timing of a Spring election in 2014 any different?

The difference is, that I don’t expect to see snowgates on the 2014 Spring ballot. Why? I don’t think your NO vote on Tuesday was an attempt to gather more information before the 2014 election, I believe you voted NO so you would have an opportunity to either
1) squash the petition of over 8,000 signers using legal recourse OR
2) writing a snowgate ordinance yourself and implementing them to your limited specifications and uses before the 2014 election. Either way, it was a political trick, but I wouldn’t expect anything less out of the five of you. As I tell friends, Sioux Falls city government is very predictable, they always vote in favor of special interests, and you did not disappoint Tuesday night. You denied 8,000 constituents AN election they asked for then turned around and handed over a $3.8 million dollar TIF (money taken away from public education) so a PRIVATE developer could build luxury lofts.

Your other fine argument against the election was that there was no way that 60 well-informed snowgate volunteers could educate the public on snowgates in 5 months. I was flabbergasted by this statement. The public only got 3 months to decide on the Events Center, one of the largest projects voters have ever approved. Do you think an army of 60 IGNORANT MORONS could collect 8,000 signatures in 10 short weeks? Do you think they did this blindly with no knowledge of how snowgates work? Councilor Erpenbach’s statement was condescending and quite frankly insulting. I have heard councilors and mayors say a lot of things over the past 10 years to constituents in public meetings, but that statement took the cake Michelle, it was over the top and downright mean spirited. You owe us a public apology.

I will direct this last part at council chair Erpenbach and mayor Huether. You can laud transparency all you want but I’m sorry Mike, just saying something doesn’t make it so. Limiting public testimony to 20 minutes and making up the rule before the meeting started without informing your fellow councilors was blatant CENSORSHIP! There is NOTHING transparent about CENSORSHIP. While there is plenty I could say about Michelle’s role in this censorship, Mike had the power to override Michelle’s concocted rule. That is why, since Tuesday I have been doing research on Robert’s Rules, censorship, the 1st Amendment and limiting FREE speech. Stifling public testimony on such an important topic was a disservice to the 8,000 petition signers, and will not be tolerated in the future. I will be using my research and resources to make sure of this.

Your lust for greed, power, control and self interest is what forced you all to vote NO on Tuesday. I feel sorry for all of you. You have only made this city and country weaker by your decisions. A democracy is only successful when it is ran by the people and for the people.

Regretfully,

Scott L. Ehrisman

Snowgates: The dis-information campaign continues. Nothing like kicking a horse while it is down.

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From GP:

I hate to beat a done deal but for every piece of bad PR out of the Mayor’s office we need to beat it back.  This is SubPrime Mike and staff’s latest effort to make us look petty and foolish.   Commenter ‘Matt70′ is part of it.

Notice how it is now “hundreds’ and not ‘thousands’ of…  Since when does 8,000 signers become hundreds of signers?

Soukup crying crocodile tears because they are being pushed to do what the citizens want… Cartoon of Soukup face on crying croc would be nice….

How much information does the city and contractors need to find to convince the public to vote against what the citizens asked for, a public vote?  The city rents / leases about ‘32′ plows for 6 months, so make the spec for blades to work with the city owned gates.  Tell the contractors and city drivers to learn how to work together. The contractors need to learn how to plow the streets the way the city requires it to be done.  After listening to the testimony I now understand why so many areas of town are plowed so badly.  One of the biggest complaints heard during the petition drive was the horrible way the contractors have been plowing or not plowing the neighborhoods.  There is a great deal of anger boiling under the surface of this town because of the preferential nature of certain neighborhoods when it comes to street work.

Let see, according to Soukup, the contractors are in charge?  Let’s add the ill-conceived Spellerberg pool issue in to this mess.  Pam Homan’s poor decision making processes endorsed by the school board we have been experiencing.   I thought this was a citizen owned government but I guess we are seeing a tip of the spear pointing at the citizen’s ass once again…  As the spear gets poked enough times during the next 17 months we may see the anger realized when SubPrime,  councilors, school board and all are before the voters May 2014.  Ahh, a perfect storm on the horizon.

From Detroit:

It seems the VP of the AGC’s get’s to decide if snowgates are doable;

“Our contractors would like to see the true cost of what snow gate is before they weigh in and decide whether it is something they’d like to see happen,” Toby Crow, Executive Vice President of Associated General Contractors of South Dakota, said.

Toby, hate to break you the news, but it is NOT up to you and your members, it is up to the voters whether or not we are going to have snowgates. This constant talk from city directors, contractors and councilors is getting down right annoying. Shut your pie holes already.

The Cowardly 5; Erpenbach, Rolfing, Entenman, Aguilar, Karsky

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Trust me, I knew how this was going to go down tonight. I knew it would probably fail.

But the process was not honored. Five councilors didn’t honor their oath to US Constitution to uphold democratic ideals, holding timely elections per request of citizen petition signers. It’s shameful, lustful, greedy, and COWARDLY. These are your five councilors that are COWARDS!

The worst part is that Council Coward Chair Erpenbach decided to implement one of her made up, pro-censorship, anti-1st amendment rules and limiting public testimony to 20 minutes (Think SF School Board meetings). That is why I was not allowed to speak, though I raised my hand.

If I would have had the opportunity (But apparently this city now is a dictatorship ran by a coward called Michelle Erpenbach) I would essentially said this;

I have been watching city government longer then any of you have even served up here. You are very predictable, but I am hoping tonight I would not have to predict the normal, self-interest, cowardly action to protect the ruling class from the working class of this city. I think it is incredibly pathetic that I even have to come here and beg my elected officials to uphold their constitutional duties they swore on in an oath. This is a slam dunk, your constituents have followed the letter of the law gathering these signatures and turning them in. Your job is easy. Vote YES to secure a timely election, any other action would be shameful, cowardly and unconstitutional.

Snowgate lies and misconceptions

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As constituents and snowgate petition gatherer volunteers have been calling councilors and comparing notes with other volunteers they are finding that some of the councilors have been spreading misinformation, and in some cases, flat out lying. Everything from your taxes being raised on food to snowgates don’t work because some city in Minnesota stopped using them.
During the mayor’s last listening and learning session a retired veteran asked the mayor if using snowgates would come out of the street repair fund. The mayor didn’t answer the question, because he probably knew the answer; NO. Snow removal comes out of the operations, 1st penny tax that CANNOT be raised without citizen or legislative approval. The mayor did mention they could up your front assessment property tax, the city council has the power to do so, BUT, it all comes down to budgeting NOT new or more taxes. Remember when the mayor sold the city on the Events Center? Remember his cry? No new taxes or increase in taxes. We simply make the bond payment out of the 2nd penny, just like the 1st penny, it cannot be raised, so it is matter of budgeting to make the EC bond payment, it is the same way with snowgates.
Don’t let this mayor or any councilor scare you into tax increases for snowgates. At the most snowgates could cost us an additional $3-5 million a year, take this out of a budget of over $100 million, and you will never even notice a change in services except that you no longer have to scoop the ice berm out of the end of your driveway.
I use the analogy of the wasted time it takes a resident to scoop out their driveway;
65,000 households x 45 minutes = 48,750 man hours x 8 major snowfalls = 390,000 man hours x $25 per hour = $9,750,000 in lost wages (double that if you pay a contractor to scoop out your driveway).
Snowgates will actually save homeowners money that they will spend elsewhere in our community therefore having a REAL economic impact. I think $19.5 million more dollars injected into the SF economy is worth the $3 dollar cost, I’m no investment banker, but that looks like a pretty good investment to me.
We have been working diligently to clarify these lies (especially the one about Edina, MN eliminating their snowgates), and during public testimony tomorrow night, many of these misconceptions will be squashed like gnats.

Snowgates; Why is the SF Media strangely quiet about the election resolution?

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On Tuesday SF city councilors will vote on holding the snowgate election this Spring. (They conveniently put the resolution as Item #31 at the bottom of the agenda – which is fine, because they will have to stare at us snowgaters for an hour or so before public testimony – and we are bringing props!)

This is precedent for several reasons. Not just for the number of signatures that were turned in, in such short period of time (7,000 valid in 10 weeks) but good government and common sense would tell us that an election of this scope should be held ASAP. Denying a citizen driven petition a timely election would be a first in SD, as far as I can tell, and make the members of the council who vote NO, really look like a bunch of self-serving, self-interest jerks.

Oh, they will make the ‘We haven’t studied snowgates enough argument.’ (They have been around for over 40 years). And my other favorite ‘We haven’t budgeted for it OR even have the money.’ (The council and the mayor have the power, thru, ironically, resolutions to appropriate funds, reserves, and transfers, whenever they want to, and secondly have over $100 million to play with in the 1st penny operations fund) So when they spout this, they are flat out lying.

So here is the word on the street;

• Rolfing will not be in attendance (that leaves us seven councilors)

• Entenman and Karsky are FOR SURE NO votes.

• Aguilar is on the fence with Erpenbach (with Michelle leaning Yes).

Staggers, Anderson and Jamison are YES votes.

Huether, who would normally be the tie breaker has not taken a position, he is probably busy playing pickle ball or combing his hair, either way, I am sure he will follow the vote by saying, “Now this is government at work, people of Sioux Falls. Good Job!”

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the media isn’t covering this, because the average citizen doesn’t spend big advertising dollars with our media. And I know people think I am a conspiracy theorist for saying that, but I know how the small minds in this city work. Trust me, the Sales Manager and Managing Editor ARE talking to each other, even if the peon reporters are not.

There has also been this assumption that councilors are calling back citizens and responding to their questions about the election. Not happening as frequent as they would like you to think. I know of one councilor who has been left several messages from multiple constituents and has not returned one single call.

Here’s the deal, this isn’t about snowgates, it’s about responding to citizen’s requests to hold an election. That’s it. Heck, snowgates may fail, who knows?! We will have months to have that argument, allow us to have it!