Give me your thoughts on this latest Vernon Brown postcard . . .
I will give you my quick thoughts; I do not respect any politician that uses their children as political props, in fact, I consider it desperate. I will give props to Costello, Peterson and Staggers for not dragging their kids into this. Sure, they mention them, but don’t use them in marketing materials. That is a good thing. Your resume should speak for itself.
While all of our mayoral candidates talk about transparency, it seems they want to blame someone else for that lack of transparency;
Taxpayers deserve to see a report about concerns at the Sioux Falls Multi-Cultural Center, several candidates for Sioux Falls mayor said Thursday.
The report so far is off-limits to the public, but Kermit Staggers and other mayoral candidates say the question of whether it should be released is an easy one.
“That’s a no-brainer,” Staggers said after a mayoral forum. “That Multi-Cultural Center is supported by tax dollars. There should be no question. It should be on the Internet.”
While Staggers is correct, I wonder what steps the council and mayor are taking to make this public? The money we give them alone should be enough to get that document out there.
The Multi-Cultural Center receives about $185,000 a year in city money, according to city budget documents. In addition, the county provides it rent-free space in the former Coliseum building on North Main Avenue, which amounts to $200,000 a year in county support.
Twedt also serves on the Multi-Cultural Center’s board and has seen the report. Although she understands the desire to learn the facts of it, Twedt said it would be up to the Multi-Cultural Center’s board to release it – not her.
Really? You and the city council are elected officials that are supposed to be protectors of our tax dollars. You should be DEMANDING that the report be made public.
New Multi-Cultural Center Board Chairwoman Mary Medema, who was named to her position this week after the resignations, said “that report may not be appropriate for the public.”
Maybe $385,000 dollars in taxpayer support is not APPROPRIATE? After 4 board members resign, and the director is put on administrative leave for over 3 weeks, one would think that not everything is Hunky-Dorry at the multi-cultural center . . . I’m just saying. Either make the report public, or we should cut off the public funding IMMEDIATELY!
That would send a clear message about transparency in government.
What the Hoover Commission looks like . . . if they had bad haircuts.
After watching their softball interview, I got the feeling that they want him to be mayor. They are soo predictable. I loved it when Bill Peterson bragged about being a history buff and said he would implement his own ‘Hoover Commission’ (just one day after PHD history professor Dr. Kermit Staggers proposed it to the same ED Board). They joked about it, and asked who’s idea it was first. Bill blabbered about something in an attempt to be funny, but you could tell he was caught off guard and not too happy Kermit trumped his ass.
Eat dat! Sucka!
I am begging the AL to endorse Bill. PLEASE! THE KISS OF DEATH – THE ARGUS LEADER ENDORSEMENT. He will be in a battle royal with Vernon for 4th place.
Yesterday I was made aware that the city code enforcement department was trying to squelch free speech. A Staggers and Stehly supporter purchased and has been displaying these signs in his yard. A couple of days ago, code enforcement took them down and said he was violating ordinance. Not true, so he put them back up. After a discussion with the enforcement office he explained to them that as long as his signs did not exeed 1,296 square inches (they are 1,230 square inches) they are legal to display, according to city ordinance. The real reason they were removed was because of ‘several complaints’ the code enforcement office finally admitted. Really, is that how we enforce code now in Sioux Falls, if someone complains loud enough, the code enforcement office just makes up something? The signs are staying up for now.
After watching the interview with Jones and his challenger that the Gargoyle Leader did the other day, it was pretty clear to me who is the most qualified to be the next At-Large city councilor; Michael Jones.
Michael Jones touched on how our city council ‘doesn’t listen to citizens’ during the public input. He used the Event Center vote meeting as an example. He was disappointed that Knudson was indignant about the criticism that the public ‘does not trust them.’ He says the councilors need to ask more questions of these citizens. “We need to know why these people don’t trust city government, we need to ask those questions.”
As for the Events Center, Michael takes the Staggers/Huether approach and says it can be paid for without raising taxes. He also touches on something else; He doesn’t think the 3rd penny would go away after 3 years, he said, citizens are concerned it would just ‘morph into something else’ and he also questioned the ’50 million dollar impact’ on the city. He asks, “Will that impact lower taxes for the common citizen?” His challenger, who sat on two task forces still seems to think the 3rd penny is the best way.
Jones supports snowgates and says they are worth trying out. He also says we need to focus on fixing streets more then building new streets. “Not all new development is good development.” He believes we need to get our infrastructure up to par before we develop more.
“When I look at Quality of Life issues, I’m a low cost high return kinda guys.” He believes that the city should let the private sector pay for more of the quality of life projects, and have them be more involved. He thinks we need an indoor public pool, but felt the last one that was proposed was poorly planned.
Jones thinks the city council needs to be more involved with the decision making process, and needs to be better checks and balances. His challenger kind of thinks councilors should just follow the mayor’s lead and thinks citizens need to ‘listen more’ to city government’. No surprise here, he has often had the elitist attitude that ‘he knows best, just trust him.’ We have had enough elitists sitting on the council, thanks, but no thanks.
Jones thinks that a full-time press secretary would be a good idea to better inform the public.
Jones thinks there needs to be better traffic flow downtown and parking.
He says that code enforcement needs to more customer service oriented and less confrontational. He also believes the city dump should be less expensive for private property owners. He also thinks the city should work with citizens to solve problems.
One thing I noticed the most in the interview was Jones’ demeaner. He seems to be a good listener and has a very citizen friendly attitude. His challenger, as a monopoly business owner in Sioux Falls, has a ‘government knows best’ attitude, and a less friendly customer service friendly attitude.
Jones is the best choice, hands down.