South DaCola

Has anything changed in 5 years?

l3wis August 25, 2019 4Comments

I find this post from April of 2014 on Holsen’s blog interesting. She is basically endorsing Greg Jamison when he was running against the former mayor for a second term.

But what is interesting about her post, is that after 5 years, it seems little has changed.

Here’s what I remember about the incumbent’s first term as mayor:

• Taking credit for road construction that has been the heartbeat and soul of the five year Capital Improvement Plan for decades. 
• Being dubbed the downtown revivalist when Downtown SF is probably in the worse shape it’s been since former Mayors Hanson and Munson took on Downtown revitalization years ago.
• Money in the piggy bank comments when money in the reserve fund has been the norm, not the exceptional happening in the last four years.
• The bullish economic boom enjoyed in Sioux Falls that has been bullish the last twenty years, not just in the last four years.
• Taking credit for cheap airfares and the introduction of Frontier Airlines that had been in the works before the first term of this mayor even began.
• The destroying and firing of city directors employed or retained as career professionals and turned into a political patronage system with the loss of some outstanding city directors and not being transparent about why they were no longer employed in his administration. They resigned, good people, I didn’t really fire them.
• The campaign talk about the wonderful city employees on his team these last few months when they were not even on his horizon or speech the first 3 years of his term. Oh, he did talk about those rich benefits city employees enjoyed when he addressed the Downtown Rotary Club his first year in office.
• Casting a dim light on ethics and an appearance of impropriety by investing in real estate that gets TIF funding from a department directly supervised by the mayor and approved by the city council.
• Petition drives galore – snow gates, indoor/outdoor pools, railroad switching lines clogging neighborhoods and traffic patterns, a Walmart on four corners of the city, development plans, spending issues, sweeping zoning ordinance changes. A restless and unhappy citizenry.
• A city charter revision commission that decided it didn’t need to work transparently and publicly in front of the citizens because they were being criticized for their work.
• Choosing to not reappoint some city board members under a cloud of heavy handedness and retribution for not doing his bidding.

You could argue that Mayor TenHaken’s appointments are even worse then that last guy, MUSH WORSE.