South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Elections South Dakotans

Eliminating Drop Boxes in South Dakota mostly hurts the majority party

l3wis 9Comments

I was well aware that former City of Sioux Falls Deputy Chief of Staff (who left the administration suddenly with little to no explanation) was behind this baffling legislation;

T.J. Nelson, a lobbyist for Opportunity Solutions Project, a conservative advocacy group that has pushed for restrictions to absentee voting in state legislatures, also issued warnings while working with legislators and county auditors to make it “easier to vote but harder to cheat,” a mantra used by supporters of early-voting reforms.

“Other states have a lot of issues with people just going out and pre-filling these absentee request forms, doing the work for the voter except signing their name, and then dumping ballots,” Nelson testified. “We need to make sure someone isn’t taking a hundred ballots and stuffing them into a ballot box.”

If a ballot is signed by the voter in a sealed envelope how is this fraud? Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny can drop your sealed ballot in a drop box at 2 AM if they wanted to, it doesn’t change the status of your vote OR your valid signature. As pointed out in the article, a USPS box is NO different then a drop box since you can still mail in a ballot. Oh, there is a difference, a postal box is less secure.

I believe the absentee voting rhetoric actually cost councilor Stehly her re-election to city council (she lost by less then 100 votes). There was so much fear out there that I think many old school conservatives and Republicans who supported Stehly simply didn’t trust the system and either didn’t vote absentee or voted at all.

When you have a state with 50% of it’s registered voters identifying as Republican why would you want to limit their voting opportunities? Drop boxes are invented to assist ALL voters no matter your political stripe so when you limit access to Indies and Democrats you are essentially limiting Republicans also.

I sometimes wonder how these supposed right-wing activists get around with all the holes in their feet.

Open Government Open Meetings PUC Sioux Falls

Utility intervenor has message about elected officials

l3wis 4Comments

This isn’t coming from your average Joe but a seasoned bureaucrat;

Wegman then headed back to the PUC as an analyst in the early 2000s. He has since retired but still does consulting work in renewable energy. He said his time in Pierre taught him an important lesson about elected officials.

“The only thing that matters to an elected official is that the public marks the box on the ballot,” Wegman said. “The unfortunate part is that no one follows up with those officials’ performance.”

He also touches on who butters the bread;

Wegman said the public should be aware that utility companies work hard to build relationships with elected regulators – for example, by sponsoring the Governor’s Hunt to get themselves invited, or hosting a dinner for the commission and lawmakers during the legislative session.

“Rule number one in business is that in order to have a relationship with the other party, you have to have a personal relationship,” Wegman said. “And that’s what those are. It is the company building a personal relationship with a commissioner. Whether they want to admit it or not, that’s what is happening.” 

In this political climate it is either get involved or suffer the consequences because as we have seen locally with the 6th Street Bunker Bridge, the proposed mural and Sustainability Plan the ones in charge only listen to one audience, and it ain’t us.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sales Tax Revenue up 12.2% from last year in Sioux Falls

l3wis 19Comments

Well we are finally seeing last year’s numbers (click on image to enlarge);

Of course there will be a formal presentation on Tuesday, a day after the Mayor’s State of the City address, you know, that FREE breakfast, baseball stadium event on Monday.

During the regular council meeting we also have some surprises.

Item #6, Sub-item #7, Approval of Contracts; Core Facade Revitalization: Historic Preservation Easement; Conditional façade easement, Blackstreet Partners, LLC, $25K (if you do a little research this LLC owns Shriver Square Downtown and are also involved with different investors with the Lucky’s building. Looks like more glue on bricks!)

Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

Is Mayor TenHaken a small thinker or a visionary? Only time will tell.  

l3wis 34Comments

“TEACHER! TEACHER! CAN I ANSWER THE QUESTION?!”

I wish I would have written that post title, but I didn’t.

It seems others in our fine community have discovered the squarespace crusader has no backbone. What took so long?

There has been oodles of backlash towards PTH and council over the roasted pumpkin seed version of the sustainability report, some critiques have been legit, others petty but this guest column editorial really nails it;

So, back to the city council: The council is elected to serve the people of Sioux Falls, not to submit to the will of a seemingly short-sighted mayor. Given that our council members’ salaries are paid by city taxpayers, yes, we do expect more. We expect the city council to carefully study and consider all the proposals in the December 2022 updated Sustainability Plan. We expect them to make Sioux Falls a leader in addressing factors that impact climate change, and to create a city of excellence in policies and practices that contribute to a livable planet for us and future generations. 

We expect the mayor to work toward measurable progress to help save the planet, and therefore help save us and future generations. A grant application for Climate Pollution Reduction funds would demonstrate good faith action in this regard.

Is Mayor TenHaken a small thinker or a visionary? Only time will tell.

As I understand the situation Poops was open minded about the initial recommendations but got push back from the council, or so they say.

Trust me, I read about government all over this country daily, as I have told my readers before, it’s my hobby, and it entertains me. But what has astonished me especially over the past 5 years is this seemingly black hole of leadership with our Sioux Falls city council and mayor. I mean, it is one thing to just make bad OR good decisions it’s a whole other level to make no decisions, with no explanation.

Tomorrow when the savior pops out of his cave he needs to make a quick trip to city hall to remind the mayor about redemption and the power of evil forces, then he needs to pull up his sandals and trot on over to Carnegie town hall to talk to the city disciples (councilors) about the consequences of bad decisions. There are a couple of things watered down wine and unleavened bread cannot fix.

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