Kooper Caraway featured on State of the Unions Podcast
l3wis 
Kooper Caraway, president of the Sioux Falls AFL-CIO was featured on yesterday’s episode. Listen HERE.
Could an ethics complaint be filed against the Mayor for appointing a secret study group
I guess the lawyers have looked over whether or not Mayor TenHaken is violating city charter by appointing a secret task force without the consent of the city council. One of the more memorable comments was, “While the mayor’s appointment of the task force doesn’t violate the law, I can’t speak on the ethics of the decision.”
Well, that’s fine, because it seems the city charter has the ‘ethical’ answer to that question;
34.007Â CANON FIVE.
   (a)   A city council member should conduct the affairs of the city council in an open and public manner.   (b)   City council members should be aware of the letter and intent of the state’s open meetings law, should conduct the affairs of the city council consistent with the letter and spirit of that law and consistent with the need to inspire and maintain public confidence in the integrity and fairness of city government and the office of city council member. Consistent with this goal of preserving public trust, city council members should be aware of the need for discretion in deliberations involving resources of the city, the reputation of people and the integrity of the governmental processes.   (c)   All actions, decisions and votes by city council members should be made on their merits, objectively, and without party, regional or ideological partisanship.
(1992 Code , App. E)Â (Ord. 34-00, passed 4-11-2000)
According to city charter, as the former mayor would point out all the time, the mayor is a member of the city council. I know this is a fine line, but purposely appointing a study group that will meet in secret could be a violation of the ethics code. Maybe a citizen needs to file and complaint against Paul and find out.
Did Bloomberg help Mayor TenHaken cook up a ‘Innovation & Technology’ Director?
It seemed kind of weird that a town that is ran by a liberal, openly gay, Democrat would have a similar position as the city of Sioux Falls;
A month after the City of South Bend’s first Chief Innovation Officer stepped down, the city has named Denise Linn Riedl to fill the position.
Riedl previously worked at the City Tech Collaborative in Chicago and also held positions at the Smart Chicago Collaborative and the Federal Communications Commission.
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Notice she has ‘degrees’, but that’s a story for a different day. So where does this ‘Innovation’ director concept come from? Did Mayor Buttigieg cook this up himself? He has been very successful turning around South Bend and he is looking at running for President. The ideas ‘may’ have ties to Bloomberg;
Last year the Office of Innovation spearheaded applications to the Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge, which saw the city win $1 million to expand pilot programs connecting low-income residents with affordable rides to work.
As you may or may not know, PTH has been getting a lot of advice from Bloomberg. This may not be a bad thing, but I find it a little ironic that after attending his ‘how to be a mayor’ Bloomberg classes in NY he created this new position. Now if he can just get Reisdorfer to take some night courses. Maybe they could share the expense of getting city clerk Greco actually certified to be a City Clerk? Hey, what an INNOVATIVE concept!
First the siding now the ceiling?
A SouthDacola foot soldier sent me this picture they took at the Fleetwood Mac concert. I know it is hard to see but there is a gaping hole in the ceiling with insulation hanging out. They said there was also air blowing out of the hole and the insulation was flopping around. This is what you get when you build an events center on a budget.
Thune continues to peddle the lies of 5G
The 5G antennas actually work at 3,000 feet, so they could go on the same towers that current cell phone antennas are. The REAL reason the telecoms want to use light poles is because it is CHEAPER. They also talk about how 5G will help people to be HEALTHIER. You can’t make this stuff up. The reason why rural SD doesn’t have good cell phone coverage is because the smaller towns and counties wanted to actually charge a reasonable lease fee to the telecoms for tower antennas and the telecoms didn’t want to pay it. 5G is about saving the telecoms billions of dollars while bilking taxpayers. This is why Thune gladly took almost a million in campaign contributions.