The Weekly roundup - November 8, 2005
Just like Metamucil, I try to help keep you regular. ...Except it’s on politics, not the other thing.
Confiteor. Mea culpa, mea culpa
As one of my friends so generously posted my hot tip for me at about 2:15 pm yesterday, the J.A.I.L. Amendment people reportedly turned in about 46,800 signatures to place the Judicial Accountability Initiative Law on the ballot for November 2006.
That signature total is significant. It places the JAIL Amendment in there with a pretty strong margin over the 33k+ total that was needed to get it on the ballot.
If you’re going to try to get the measure killed before it gets to the ballot, a 13,000 vote margin is going to be pretty tough to whittle down. A few hundred? Sure. A few thousand? A definite possibility. But 13,000? The Magic Eight Ball says “Not likely. Ask again later.” To use the adjective from last week when I mentioned Senator Napoli turned his petitions over to the Secretary of State – they’re in with authority.
After today, that leaves them in an interesting position.
Yes, they’re in. There’s no doubt about that. But as of September, they reported they were taking their signature taking “pro” with about 12,000 already collected, leaving about 34,800 signatures collected at $2.48 each.
If we’re generous, and consider that they only had to pay to collect 30,000 signatures, I’m guesstimating that’s almost $75,000 they spent on gathering signatures (not to mention the t-shirts they gave away).
But now they have to run a campaign. If they’re lucky, they’re starting from $0, as opposed to in the red.
And the WIKI pays dividends… A Legislative Challenger appears to arise.
Extra Special Thanks to Todd Epp of the Big SD Watch fame who seems to be the only other one who cares to post stuff on the WIKI. And Todd has had some excellent additions.
Included among those are a Democratic challenger candidate who it’s noted has done all but announce for District 10 Senate.
The buzz that Todd reports is that Dr. Phil Sietstra is going to make a run for the office currently held by Gene Abdallah. Phil looks to be already active politically in optometric circles – lets see if he can translate that into a legitimate candidacy.
Got a hot tip to add? Want to check out the latest candidate buzz? Add the WIKI to your bookmarks.
Veterans Day Tributes
I’m working on a couple of things in honor of Veterans Day, but until I get them posted, please take a moment to review http://www.sdvietnamwarmemorial.com . This is actually one of my projects, and I’m extremely proud of the state’s efforts to honor our State’s Vietnam Veterans.
Pierre City Commission is still under electrical fire
Check out this article from the Capitol Journal where it appears that Audrey Ricketts of SDREA figuratively got in the mayor’s face over some of the issues associated with Oahe Electrical Coop’s proposed takeover of the Pierre’s Utilities.
In this Government town, open confrontation is rare, as people don’t tend to rock the boat. But people are P.O.’d at the city and their constant utility rate increases. There were a recent series of letters to the editor in the Capitol Journal over the topic.
And I can attest to the fact that despite City Commission opinion - These really weren’t ghost written, guys. People are that mad.
And given the massive disparity in voter registration in this town, I suspect that the GOP ethic against government competing with a private business is going to factor into voter minds when the time comes to vote on it.
Oh yeah, there’s already 2 or 3 local garbage carriers. The city should get out of that business too.
Confiteor. Mea culpa, mea culpa
As one of my friends so generously posted my hot tip for me at about 2:15 pm yesterday, the J.A.I.L. Amendment people reportedly turned in about 46,800 signatures to place the Judicial Accountability Initiative Law on the ballot for November 2006.
That signature total is significant. It places the JAIL Amendment in there with a pretty strong margin over the 33k+ total that was needed to get it on the ballot.
If you’re going to try to get the measure killed before it gets to the ballot, a 13,000 vote margin is going to be pretty tough to whittle down. A few hundred? Sure. A few thousand? A definite possibility. But 13,000? The Magic Eight Ball says “Not likely. Ask again later.” To use the adjective from last week when I mentioned Senator Napoli turned his petitions over to the Secretary of State – they’re in with authority.
After today, that leaves them in an interesting position.
Yes, they’re in. There’s no doubt about that. But as of September, they reported they were taking their signature taking “pro” with about 12,000 already collected, leaving about 34,800 signatures collected at $2.48 each.
If we’re generous, and consider that they only had to pay to collect 30,000 signatures, I’m guesstimating that’s almost $75,000 they spent on gathering signatures (not to mention the t-shirts they gave away).
But now they have to run a campaign. If they’re lucky, they’re starting from $0, as opposed to in the red.
And the WIKI pays dividends… A Legislative Challenger appears to arise.
Extra Special Thanks to Todd Epp of the Big SD Watch fame who seems to be the only other one who cares to post stuff on the WIKI. And Todd has had some excellent additions.
Included among those are a Democratic challenger candidate who it’s noted has done all but announce for District 10 Senate.
The buzz that Todd reports is that Dr. Phil Sietstra is going to make a run for the office currently held by Gene Abdallah. Phil looks to be already active politically in optometric circles – lets see if he can translate that into a legitimate candidacy.
Got a hot tip to add? Want to check out the latest candidate buzz? Add the WIKI to your bookmarks.
Veterans Day Tributes
I’m working on a couple of things in honor of Veterans Day, but until I get them posted, please take a moment to review http://www.sdvietnamwarmemorial.com . This is actually one of my projects, and I’m extremely proud of the state’s efforts to honor our State’s Vietnam Veterans.
Pierre City Commission is still under electrical fire
Check out this article from the Capitol Journal where it appears that Audrey Ricketts of SDREA figuratively got in the mayor’s face over some of the issues associated with Oahe Electrical Coop’s proposed takeover of the Pierre’s Utilities.
In this Government town, open confrontation is rare, as people don’t tend to rock the boat. But people are P.O.’d at the city and their constant utility rate increases. There were a recent series of letters to the editor in the Capitol Journal over the topic.
And I can attest to the fact that despite City Commission opinion - These really weren’t ghost written, guys. People are that mad.
And given the massive disparity in voter registration in this town, I suspect that the GOP ethic against government competing with a private business is going to factor into voter minds when the time comes to vote on it.
Oh yeah, there’s already 2 or 3 local garbage carriers. The city should get out of that business too.
Comments
Your anti Eisnach bias is showing. Since when would GOP values allow us to pick a non tax paying entity like a co-op over the municipal utility? Brad Scott and Chris Hipple need to come clean and tell us what they'll do for our rates. I'm interested to know what they'll be, because as I understand it, our allocation from the Dam goes away if the municipal utility does.
BK
I know of several whose promoters knew they were short at the deadline, and so they didn't submit them.
As for Sietstra; I don't care if he's a crack addict, he's gotta be better than that pig sot Abdallah.
And it's not often I'd ever admit I voted that way. But Dennis was the best person for the job at the time. I think Mayor is a thankless job.
That being said, I think he treats the city as "his," and it's either his way or the highway. And that's what I have some grief with. And that attitude has not improved the city's financial situation.
For crying out loud, one of the main justifications for Pierre reorganizing was because he thought he was spending too much time at the job? What hubris.
And in response to your concern on the allocation from the dam, I checked with Chris and his response was "Under the proposal because we're non-profit the WAPA allocation remains intact and remains solely with the residents of Pierre and is non-diluted."
If you have any questions on the rates, which I'm told will be lower, contact bscott@oaheelectric.com and I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any questions.
Besides, I'm just observing this thing.
And in response to Bob, it has happened before.
In the 80's ICA challenged a petition in court, and it just so happens had hired my father's PI form to investigate the signature gathering on the petitions.
They were positive they had it beat, but ICA ran out of $ to continue the challenge.
A challenge of that nature can be pretty expensive.
But I would concur, I'm not sure a statewide challengs has prevented a measure from being placed on the ballot. Yet.
As far as I know the only thing that was done was a retest of a couple of concept support questions at the end.
I personally got to peek at it before it was done and it was a professional job.
There was nothing like "Do you support the city commission. And if you knew they kicked puppies would that change your opinion?"
Now THAT's a push poll.