South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

1st Amendment State Legislature

Letter Writer misses Jefferson’s point about ‘God’ in schools

l3wis 6Comments

I often chuckle when people repeat quotes of our founding fathers in order to argue for their side while ignoring what the founding fathers were actually saying. This letter writer thinks Jefferson wasn’t supporting separation of church and state, but I guess it is how you read the quote and comprehend it;

Jefferson spoke directly against such an incursion of federal power, citing the First Amendment and Tenth Amendment restrictions on the federal government: “Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the General [federal] Government.”

I guess, there is no other way to comprehend this statement, except a separation of church and state. But the quote also includes this little ending to try to confuse the reader;

“It must then rest with the States.”

While the States do have their own constitutions, they must follow the highest law of the land, the US Constitution which contains the 1st Amendment. States often try to skirt this very important amendment, and have often failed. There is currently a lawsuit pending on this when it comes to out of state campaign money. But even if states were granted supreme power to ignore the 1st Amendment when it comes to placing ‘In God We Trust’ in schools;

  • Why have they offered to defend school districts in lawsuits? If they think they are creating laws that are constitutional, why would they have to have this disclaimer?
  • Who in this state asked for this legislation? While we are a representational government, who asked our representatives to change the law? Clergy? School Districts? Voters? I have never heard of one single group asking our representational government to do this. Why? Because most people with common sense know this is unconstitutional, and even if it wasn’t, what difference does it make?

Are we so ignorant and naive to believe that by posting ‘God’ in the mess hall of a school somehow we will produce a born again revolution of school kids? Give me a break. If you want your children to have a religious foundation in their education you have the option and the right to send them to a private school.

Our public schools are designed to educate, whether that is math or literature, or working together on a sports team, or creativity in the arts. Our teachers are NOT clergy. Faith is something that needs to be taught by parents with the assistance of faith based organizations that are NOT publicly funded for a reason, it violates the separation clause, something I think Jefferson was VERY clear about. Separation of Church and State is there to PROTECT people of faith from government intruding into your personal beliefs. It’s a good thing. If legislators truly want to SAVE our children from the powers of evil, the first thing they need to do is fund public education and healthcare better, something the state has the power to do, but continues to fail. Once that happens then we can talk about posting signs that actually mean something.

State Funding State Legislature

The liquor license dilemma

l3wis 1Comments

Our daily paper has an intriguing story about liquor licenses. Mostly a bunch of people whining about the process. If I was in the state legislature I would present what they do in most states and have a yearly licensing fee for selling liquor.  I think it is ok to separate beer and wine from selling full on liquor, but I would combine the those two licenses into one and double that fee.

So how would it work?

• First I would eliminate who could have them, no waiting lists, etc. As long as your establishment was of a certain size and you could prove you were opening a viable business you could have one. Obviously free market competition would stop us from having a liquor bar on every corner.

• I would charge a yearly licensing fee. In larger markets like SF it would be much higher and based on population (like it kind of is now). For example the fee in SF would be $10K a year while in Baltic it would be much lower.

• Grandfathering license holders. This wouldn’t be for eternity, but I would set a time limit for phasing them out. How would that work? First, once a yearly fee is determined you would assess the value of the license you currently own. Each town would be the same within that town. Right now a new license is worth around $190K in Sioux Falls. So if the new licensing fee was $10K a year and you owned one of these licenses in SF you wouldn’t have to pay the fee for 19 years. But I would cap it at 20 years. In other words in 20 years after the new law takes place all of the old style of licenses would be null and void.

• The old licenses would NOT be transferable to another location but could be to a new owner at the same location with the same business model.

• I would give the option of selling the old license back to the municipality at 50% of the value if you wanted to get out of the bar business. I think this change alone would eliminate a lot of the old licenses. The new licensing fees would easily cover these costs for the cities.

Everyone who owns a license now complains they would lose there investment, but I think a plan like I suggested would still give value to that license. I also think that a ‘license’ shouldn’t be considered an investment anyway. It’s a frickin’ license. I think the way the system is set up now, you have a lot of the big guys hoarding the licenses, and that’s not fair. This would even the playing field and would actually produce better establishments based on service instead of how much money you have or the value of your liquor license. Think about it, what other license in SD is forever? There isn’t one that I can think of. Even your driver’s license has to be renewed every couple of years.

Is our state legislature brave enough to take such steps? Nope. They are more worried about protecting a certain class of people instead of fostering entrepreneurship. Besides, they are more concerned about God, Guns and Abortion.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda • April 16, 2019

l3wis 2Comments

City Council Informational • 4 PM

• 2020 Municipal Election Update by city clerk Tom Greco

• Congressional City Conference, National League of Cities, Councilor Brekke

• Executive Session (I believe the City Council is getting close to hiring a NEW internal auditor. As I understand it, no big surprises, no outsiders, just more of the same.)

City Council Regular Meeting • 7 PM

Item#2, Invocation, It’s been a long time since a NON-Christian has done the Invocation, this time a Hindu. I hope the X-Tians don’t melt.

Item#41, Ordinance, 2nd Reading, Cement Pad sponsorship at Levitt. Weird. Wondering how long before a sponsorship fence will be put up? It will look like a ballpark soon and all the DT baseball dreamers will have their way.

Items#42-43, 2nd Reading, Ordinance, City buying more Falls Park property. Can’t have enough parking at Falls Park 🙂

Item#44, 2nd Reading, Ordinance, Fiber Optic easement that may screw up the railroad redevelopment, redevelopment. Not sure why all the fiber optic needs to be laid, I thought we were going 5G?

Item#49, 1st Reading, Special Appropriation for flood prone homes. 2nd reading in special meeting next Tuesday. This will be an interesting discussion.

Quote of the week from Mayor Paul TenHaken when talking about cracking down on prostitution in Sioux Falls;

“We need the johns and sellers to see Sioux Falls is not screwing around with this,” TenHaken said.

Click to Enlarge Agenda Calendar

Railroads Sioux Falls

UPDATE: The Railroad Redevelopment deal was the worst negotiation in the history of our city

l3wis 14Comments

UPDATE: Listen to interview HERE.

Former Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut is at it again with his recent ‘media’ tour;

“The thing that I believe that was probably the biggest win for the city during the eight years I was so honored to serve, involved finally inking the deal with Burlington Northern (to move the railroad switchyard from 8th Street).

As I have stated in the past, this was a horribly negotiated deal. We didn’t get a majority of the trains to move out of downtown, we paid to much for the land (that the Feds probably owned to begin with) and we have yet to cut a deal with anyone. One deal fell through and another developer is offering HALF of appraised value.

This is a habit with Bowlcut that he just cannot seem to break. When something actually is a very bad deal, he says it’s the greatest thing ever. I always say, to say you are being TRUTHFUL is different than actually being TRUTHFUL.

Mayor TenHaken Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

If you have to tell us how you are being transparent, you likely are missing the a mark

l3wis 8Comments

I have often argued if you want to be transparent in government, OPEN up everything except what is not allowable by law like personnel issues and pending litigation and let the public tell you if they are getting too much information – which is highly unlikely.

While Mayor PTH has made some strides in transparency, most of it happened because of pressure from the public or the city council, but let’s review;

A few weeks into my tenure, I directed that all available audio from the Parks and Recreation Board meetings be posted on the city’s website. This had been opposed in the past. Beginning in 2019, we also began recording video of these meetings.

I commend the mayor on this decision, but this ball was already rolling when councilor Stehly pushed for this in the last administration.

I initiated changes to the Council’s consent agenda — the list of contracts for goods and services the city enters into that require Council notification and approval.

This was also something the council (and public) requested. And I will agree, it is much better.

I am also easy to reach by the public. I hold regular office hours for the public and meet with community stakeholders and citizens on a daily basis.

While this may be the case, having a security officer at city hall because someone stole a can of Coke out of the mayor’s reefer isn’t exactly a show of transparency. If the mayor is concerned about his security, he should talk to the State Legislature about banning firearms in public government buildings. I also think having ONE main phone number for the city with a switchboard will be helpful, something the mayor says he is working on. This is WAY overdue.

And why do the bureaucrats always have to split community stakeholders and citizens? As in “I hold regular office hours for the public and meet with community stakeholders and citizens on a daily basis.” Aren’t we are all citizens or at least all stakeholders?

This week my administration launched a Community Dashboard to provide the public and media with key performance indicators that are easy to access and simple to understand.

The data or Community Dashboard is worthless if you do not know the cryptic file naming scheme, in other words, it needs work. I have never understood why Sioux Falls doesn’t have a simple website like the City of Omaha. Notice the department tabs on the left hand side of the home page. When you click on them they give you more contact information and a search engine that assists you in what you are looking for. It seems the city’s IT department is making things more complicated by creating a portal that doesn’t really work. Break it up into departments and let people search from those tabs.

While PTH has made some strides in transparency, it has been from the pressure of the council and public, for example the Event Center Campus Book Club meetings. Those meetings would have never been open unless there was pressure from councilors Starr and Stehly.

I challenge Paul to open everything up and then deal with the criticism from too much transparency, I can pretty much guarantee he will hear NO complaints from the public, the REAL stakeholders in this government.

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