South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

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Kyle Schoenfish Stace Nelson State Funding State Legislature

SEN Nelson calls out fellow lawmaker Kyle Schoenfish for GEAR-UP audits

l3wis 8Comments

Stace is not the only one who is wondering how the audits didn’t catch such obvious corruption;

There have been significant concerns and questions expressed by voters in our district, by other legislators, and even KELO’s Angela Kennecke in a news story, regarding our district Rep. Kyle Schoenfish’s reported involvement in the auditing of certain entities at the center of this scandal. On Jan. 31, I officially forwarded those questions to Rep. Schoenfish. He responded on Feb. 4 stating the questions were “..fairly easy to address.” Despite that statement, to date he has refused to provide answers to those questions asked by Kennecke and others. Additionally, Rep. Schoenfish failed to show up for two of our district’s five cracker barrels (legislative forums), one in Corsica on Feb. 16, and the other in his hometown of Scotland on March 11. He now claims repeatedly in his articles to our local papers that he has been “attacked” by “dishonest politicians and people” and claims to be a victim of “meritless political attacks.”

Rep. Schoenfish is being “attacked” by his own record and the ugly appearance that comes from avoiding answering questions that the public has a right to have answered. In regards to his missing or avoiding cracker barrels, if I as a husband, daddy, grandfather, small Sioux Falls business manager, hobby farmer and busted-up old Marine can make time to meet my obligations and drive several hours to attend the voters’ cracker barrels to be answerable to you, I expect a young, single man living at home and working for his father to make time for the responsibilities he knowingly signed on to (and got paid for), or to resign if he is unwilling to do so.

Hey Stace, it’s hard work covering up lies.

SF School District State Funding State Legislature Taxes

Suckers! Everyone of you!

l3wis 8Comments

This is what I said about the sales tax increase last February for teacher pay;

As I have said, it is purely ignorant to raise regressive sales taxes for teacher pay when the money is already there (heck, probably sitting in reserves). This is about presenting intelligent plans to raise teacher pay, not knee jerk reactions. People want this increase SO bad, they are willing to fall back on fiscally irresponsible and ignorant taxation plans to get it. That my friends is called GREED.

They went on to pass it anyone. And guess what, they could not have done it without the help of the Democratic legislators (and as Pam Nelson has pointed out, maybe a reason why they failed so bad this past election season). The worst part about it is they had a better plan, but didn’t present it, instead they went along with the Republican Governor’s plan, and guess where that got us? Exactly where I knew this would end up!

The House of Representatives on Tuesday night approved Senate Bill 35, which strikes the specifications for how the half-cent sales tax are used. Appropriators on Wednesday morning said that given the strained state economy and lower than expected revenues, education funding would remain flat.

Only one year later and the Governor (who cooked up the sales tax increase to begin with) already wants to rob the pot. ONLY ONE YEAR LATER! And once it happens, there is NO going back. The tax will NEVER be repealed and the teachers will never fully receive the money.

Some accuse me of being too cynical. But it is my cynism that sees this crap a mile away. When crooks are in power for the past 40 years, you don’t just wake up one morning in 2016 and say, “Let’s trust them this time, it’s for the teachers.”

Can you hear that sound . . . it gets louder the closer you are to Pierre.

South Dakotans State Funding State Legislature

Hypocrisy from Pierre Update & the Ghost of Janklow

l3wis 1Comments

I was going to do a couple of full-fledged posts on these two issues, but with the nice weather and all, I really don’t want to waste too much time farting around blogging.

Mark ‘Gigantic, Enormous, Forked Tongue, Hypocrite’ Mickelson

Last week, State Legislator and I think the head dude in Pierre, Mark Mickelson wrote a guest column in the AL decrying all the dark money coming in the state for initiatives. Call a whaaabulance Mark. He then began to chastise the groups and voters for not being aware of such darkness. Not once did he mention all the out-of-state donations the SD GOP has received over the years to fund state legislative candidates. Actually, just a few years ago when Jason Gant was tasked with those efforts, he dispersed over $90K to legislative candidates all over the state.

I’m sure Mark’s next letter will be about all the dark out-of-state money Kristi Noem received while serving in Congress that she has now swiftly moved to her governor’s campaign fund (over $1 million). Hypocrisy at it’s finest, and dark on both sides. Why shouldn’t we elect his wife to the SF School Board?

SB 176 the (Janklow) Protest Bill

Does anyone remember when Billy Bob Janks pulled this spade out of his ass?

Sept. 23 – South Dakota’s tactic of stopping Canadian trucks to protest what it sees as unfair trade practices with Canada is spreading to other states.
A week ago, South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow ordered state troopers to stop and inspect shipments of Canadian grain and livestock coming into the state. The action was intended to send a message urging U.S. officials to ensure fair trade between the two countries. Several trucks were turned away at the state’s borders for not having paperwork required by the state.

It seems Dennis not only has a short memory, but a tinge of hypocrisy when it comes to protest rules. Or maybe he is just taking a page from his dear old buddy Uncle Bill? Now that I think about it, it is too bad we didn’t block Janklow from driving on the roads in SD, probably be a lot more people alive today.

Kyle Schoenfish Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether State Funding State Legislature

Mayor Huether’s Nephew in Deep with Gear Up scandal

l3wis 17Comments

The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

We’ve talked about Mr. Schoenfish in the past, he has been the mayor’s favorite nephew for quite awhile. Kyle received campaign donations from Uncle Mike when he first ran for the legislature as a Democrat, and after losing that race, he realized putting an ‘R’ behind his name was the winning ticket, Uncle High Crimes slipped him some more money that time to. Ironically, Mike left the Democratic party to, it’s a family thing I guess, when the going gets tough . . . the tough switches parties. I wonder if the ‘R’ behind Kyle’s name will be enough to save him this time?

It looks like he is finally going to see his day in court over being the auditor for Mid Central and Gear Up;

The Co-op, which is now defunct, is pointing fingers at its accounting firm which performed yearly audits for more than a decade.

It’s the accounting firm of a current lawmaker, Kyle Schoenfish. Schoenfish is a Republican representative from Scotland, SD.

It is also no secret that Kyle has been looked at from the beginning on the Gear Up investigation;

We looked at Schoenfish’s audit report on Mid Central from July of 2013 to 2014, right before the South Dakota Legislative audit found problems with GEAR UP.

Schoenfish said, “We identified certain deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses. It did find that over an eight year period “errors and omissions were noted in the annual finance statements prepared by cooperative officials.”   Mid Central promised to be more “accurate and complete” when preparing financial statements.

KELOLAND News tried to reach Kyle Schoenfish Tuesday for comment.  We’ll let you know when we hear back from him.

This isn’t the first time the accounting firm of Schoenfish & Company has been under scrutiny over not catching the misuse of GEAR UP funds.

An independent group of citizens has prepared a list of ten questions it would like lawmaker Kyle Schoenfish to answer and has submitted them to the South Dakota Auditor General.

They specifically ask about discrepancies in Mid Central’s balances and if Schoenfish ever reported them to anyone outside of Mid Central. We’ve posted those ten questions online on this story if you’d like to read them.

Maybe Stormland should be calling MMM, see what he knows? Too bad you couldn’t keep those audits secret like the Events Center siding settlement. I wonder if Uncle Hubris will come to the rescue of his favorite nephew if he is charged and faces jail time? Get Fiddle Faddle on it!

State Funding State Legislature

The South Dakota Legislature really is an international embarrassment

l3wis 9Comments

Pretty sad it takes a foreigner (and a teenager to boot) to observe the absurdity of our state legislator;

We have a foreign exchange student staying with us from Venezuela. Recently, her class went to Pierre to see democracy in action. She came home stunned.

The students were to listen and take notes on debates about issues they had studied including Initiated Measure 22. The Majority Whip, called to speak several times, was absent. He wandered in with a “huge” burger, then visited with friends during testimony. When votes were called, my friend observed that all the lawmakers she could see were on social media. Several looked around and voted the way their peers voted.

“I don’t think they even knew which bill they were voting on. I don’t think they cared!” She shook a paper at me. “Look,” she said, pointing at a paragraph. “It says, carefully … lawmakers will carefully consider all the information and then vote.”

Later, the class went to committee to witness citizens give testimony. “They were so rude!” my friend exclaimed. “They could have at least said, ‘Thank you for coming.’ They didn’t even pretend to listen.” A final insult, “They didn’t even take notes. What are they doing?”

It’s time for us voters to lay some tile in Pierre.

Or maybe just fire all of them.

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