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.
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.
While I commend PTH for wanting to do charity work half-way across the world, he should look in his backyard;
He may now be Mayor, but that’s not stopping TenHaken from making his annual trip to help those in need in a Haitian city called Ti Riviere.
“This is how I’m going to spend a week of vacation every year. This is not a city junket. This is not a political trip. This is me needing to go to Haiti to recharge my batteries and get some perspective each year,” TenHaken said.
Just look at our school system, half of the students are on FREE and reduced lunches. Some of the schools in the poorer neighborhoods are around 90%. Recently a study determined that a neighborhood by North Cliff is a food dessert. The Banquet is expanding to the Westside of the city. Week after week a concerned citizen shows up to the city council meeting and begs the mayor to open a temporary shelter for those who get turned away at the other ‘god-fearing’ joints. There is county a few hundred miles from here on the reservation that is considered the poorest in the nation. If PTH wants to help the poor, he just needs to look out the backdoor of city hall. With our low wage work environment, he will find plenty who need help.
UPDATE: I also find it a bit ironic that PTH mentions this was NOT a junket but he paid for it himself. Did you know Sioux Falls mayors have unlimited vacation time? And I guess PTH has been maxing that fringe benefit quite a bit. This is why he had to allow COS Beck to be part-time mayor in his absence.
But it gets even better, I guess Public Works director Cotter went along for the ride to study ‘infrastructure’. No offense, but wouldn’t you be studying the ‘LACK’ of infrastructure? Also if this was a ‘fact finding’ mission for Cotter, did the taxpayers of Sioux Falls pay for it? Did PTH pay his way? As I understand it, this is missionary work, and the fine line between government and religion could have been crossed. But I think the pressing question is, ‘Who in their right mind would take a vacation with their boss, to an undeveloped country, to read the bible to the natives?’
While I believe they are conducting a national search, I wonder how that will really turnout?
With Cooper retiring in April, the city has started a nationwide search for his replacement.
“To maintain the growth we’ve had in the city and to keep that moving forward, this position is responsible for that, so for all intents and purposes, it’s one of our biggest positions,” Mayor Paul TenHaken said.
I have maintained for awhile that if you bring in a new planning director from out of state they will not have the historical knowledge of how planning and development is done in Sioux Falls. As we know, developers and the hospitals run the town, they pretty much admitted that during the Citizens Planning Academy when a citizen asked why Sanford and the other big developers get what they want. Those with the most money win!
I think the new position will be a Co-Director position that will manage the department, but I think the new director will have to answer to a higher power who has the historical knowledge. I think the department will ultimately be managed by COS Beck.
So this bill is moving forward;
A bill seeking to protect journalists and their sources of information passed out of committee this morning Pierre.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee advanced House Bill 1074 by a unanimous vote.
Reporter Shield Laws have become common across the United States but South Dakota has lagged behind in adopting reporter privilege as law. Â That from proponents who testified on behalf of the bill.
It fails to recognize ‘bloggers’ as journalists even though countless judges have determined them as journalists (I have qualified as press when I covered the Sanders and Clinton campaigns and got the same treatment as TV and newspaper journalists);
What is not included in HB1074 is a provision for bloggers and other social media based operations not affiliated with credentialed news sources, publications, or call letter broadcast stations.
As I have said in the past, I sell advertising on my site, so I do get paid. I have also pointed out the major newspapers and TV stations across the state could not survive without their internet revenue. Most people get their news from the internet. I would also argue that many major news stories get their start on the blogs. The local stations pluck story ideas from my site all of the time. The EC siding settlement would have never occurred if Bruce and I didn’t make a stink about it. This law should be amended to include bloggers.
l3wis