So who does Mayor Huether propose pay to remove dead trees on city owned property?

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Before we get to the ‘tree scam’ proposed by the city, first a little back and forth between the city councilors;

“It’s been embarrassing as a citizen to watch previous leadership,” Councilor Michelle Erpenbach said.

“Last year’s budget was totally ridiculous,” Councilor Jim Entenman said.

“Remember, Jim, there’s a couple people here who voted on that ridiculous budget,” Councilor Greg Jamison said.

Oh, but councilor Staggers was such a bad guy, you know, the boogey man of responsible spending, now all of sudden everyone is a fiscal conservative now that the bottom dropped out of the economy. Yet Erpenbach supports funding the Zoo, and Entenman supported raising sales taxes to build an Events Center. Sorry folks, can’t have it both ways. Either you support spending tax money on taxpayer needs, or you don’t.

The first cut the council discussed Tuesday was the elimination of the street tree removal program, which removes dead or diseased trees from rights-of-way.

The $60,000 program will be discontinued under the 2011 budget proposal.

So who does our mayor propose pay for this program? Kinda sounds like he wants to use the same unconstitutional city ordinance that forces people to trim city owned trees to force people to pay for the removal of the city owned trees. So I ask you again, Mike, who do you suppose pay for dead tree removal? The Feds? The County? Because it sure as Hell shouldn’t be property owners who don’t own the property.

Posted in: Sioux Falls

HOUSE DEBATE: Marking points out the obvious & Noem gives chickenshit answer of the day

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As someone who was at the debate yesterday front and center, I can tell you that Stephanie mopped the floor with Noem and Marking actually impressed me more then Noem. If I had one criticism of Steffy it is that she acted a little ‘Staggers’ like when she spoke (knowing the issues but letting her passion overflow a bit). The confusion on Noem’s face throughout the debate was priceless. She seemed confused about almost every rebuttal Steffy had. Noem also answered every question the same way, “I have spoken to the people of SD about this issue, and it is important to them . . .” Blah, Blah, Blah. Don’t you have some moose hunting to do or something? Like I said, I was more impressed by Marking, but he is sort of a hypocrite, on many levels. He talks about smaller government and opposing socialized medicine, but he has sucked from that tit his whole life as former military man and federal employee. I got mine, so screw you I guess is his philosphy, but I did like this quote;

The independent candidate, B. Thomas Marking, blamed both major parties for creating the nation’s problems, arguing that neither Republicans nor Democrats are capable of fixing the mess they created.

No doubt. Our two-party system is a f’ing joke, thanks for pointing out the obvious. And as we expected Noem trotted out her Republican talking points (which I’m sure were written on her wrist with a sharpie);

“I want you to know that I believe the U.S. House of Representatives is the people’s House,” Noem said. “It is not Nancy Pelosi’s House.”

Good one. Dumb.

But where Steffy slammed Noem was on her non-stance of Social Security. It is pretty obvious that Noem supports privatization, but when you are facing a barn full of old people it is kinda hard to spit it out, so she took the chickenshit route and claimed she doesn’t have a stance;

Herseth Sandlin accused Noem of wanting to privatize Social Security and Medicare. She was referencing an Internet chat that Noem did in May with the Rapid City Journal. In that chat, Noem said she thought a budget proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was a “great place to start and the right direction for this country to go.” Ryan’s proposal includes giving younger workers the option to put their Social Security into private accounts.

But in the debate, Noem said she had never taken a position specifically on privatizing Social Security.

Herseth Sandlin responded: “I have taken a position on privatizing Social Security. I stand firmly against it.”

This part of debate really separated Steffy from Noem and Steffy was the one smelling like roses after that exchange.

Post-Debate guest appearance.

This one is for Patrick

Posted in: Herseth-Sandlin, Kristi Noem, US House

The Sioux Falls Board of Ethics doesn’t want us to think (or know) that they are A-Holes?

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The ethics board chief advisors

I am amazed that in such a small town that we have such huge egos and arrogance by the few in power;

The Sioux Falls City Council wants to make the ethics complaint process more public and give the Board of Ethics less authority to impose penalties as it works to amend city law.

Right now, the board has the authority to impose several penalties on city officials or employees if they are found to be in the wrong.

The penalties include a reprimand, suspension or removal from office or a fine.

“They serve as the prosecutor and the judge at the same time,” Councilor Kenny Anderson Jr. said Monday at the council’s Public Service Committee meeting.

Oh, but wait, even though Kenny is right, and it is LEGAL, the boo-hoo ethics board doesn’t want you to think it is all their fault.

Chairman Michael McKnight said the board simply was following the city ordinance.

“We are the favorite whipping boy. What can we say? There’s not much we can say about the specific incident because the process is confidential,” McKnight said.

That is just it. Instead of just responding to the one complaint about the city employee addresses they went on a ‘fishing expedition’ and tried to find other ethics violations against Dr. Staggers. This WAS political, and it so f’ing obvious that heads should role. I mean, C’mon, these people are volunteers, boot their asses. The job of a GOOD and FAIR ethics board is to look into complaints and make recommendations. That’s it. Seems pretty simple to me. Instead, they have the city attorney’s office and their TOADS digging up empty graves like no tomorrow.

Huether and the council need to remove everyone from the ethics board and city attorney’s office and start fresh.

Posted in: Ethics, Sioux Falls

What’s the best way to win a mayoral race? Spend lot’s of money.

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This comes as no surprise, Huether spent 2.4x more then Staggers. As I have said all along, this election was bought and paid for;

In total, Huether spent more than $240,000 for his campaign. Pat Costello followed with $166,000. Kermit Staggers spending more than $100,000, according to campaign finance disclosure statements.

While these numbers are not surprising, this one is;

Huether, a newcomer to the political arena, had more than $97,000 in in-kind contributions, according to city of Sioux Falls campaign finance disclosure statements. It was a hefty amount compared with Costello’s $15,000 and Staggers’ $1,750.

It shows the only real person financially supporting Mike was Mike. Of course he puts his best spin on it;

Huether, who spent $128,000 of his own money on his campaign, said contributing a fair amount of his own money was done in the “spirit of stewardship.”

That’s the biggest line of bullshit I have heard from him in a long time. Allowing you to be our mayor is hardly ‘stewardship’. You hate losing, so you spent as much as possible so that would not happen. It just goes to show how money has destroyed politics.

And this number is a little fuzzy also;

In total, Huether spent more than $37,000 for consulting during his campaign.

That’s interesting, because when I add up all the ‘consulting fees’ it comes close to $74,000. But who knows. Things are often listed twice on the financial reports. Heck, he could have paid Hildebrand a cool $100,000 and we would never know.

Posted in: Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Mayor Race, Staggers