War College News Roundup 2/8/06

There's just too much to try to get to this lunch hour while I try to eat my hamburger and type at the same time. So, we'll just do a quick roundup of what's happening ...

Pennington County Commission drops out from South Dakota Association of County Commissions

The Penn Co Comm officially pulled out of the state organization after the SDACC refused to accept a partial dues payments while the PCC intended to monitor the State organizations' responsiveness to it's concerns. As reported in today's Rapid City Journal by Scott Aust:

The county commission decided in early January to pay only the first three months of $10,242 in annual membership dues to the South Dakota Association of County Commissioners and that if quarterly payments were not accepted, the county's membership would end.

"As far as I'm concerned, we made the offer. They didn't accept it. I'm not going to change my mind," Commissioner Gale Holbrook said. "It would be nice if we could support the association, but up to this point, they haven't shown very much support for us in Pennington County."

and...

Holbrook said Pennington County has gotten "absolutely nothing from those people."

"That's not the kind of support that I would look for," he said. "I could change my position if we got back in touch with them and told them that we want their full support for that liquor-tax issue."

Commissioner Delores Coffing said the association has told Pennington County before that it would support the liquor-tax initiative but that support never happened.

"They are under the liquor lobby's thumb," she said.

That's pretty tough talk. And I'm sure there's no end in sight for the ongoing battles bewteen the Pennington County Commission and the SDACC.

- On a somber note, I understand the wife of SDACC Director Bob Wilcox has been gravely injured in a car accident just this past weekend. Our thoughts and prayers are with him during this difficult time.

More on the Pennington County Commission. This time they reconsider their reconsideration of the petition policy

In an effort to curb the JAIL petitions, the Penn Co Comm goes after paid petitioners.. Per the Rapid City Journal again by Scott Aust:

Commissioners said they are most concerned about out-of-state interests pushing petitions and paying a bounty to circulators for each signature gathered.

"I know I'm not the only one who's had people complain about being approached three or four at a time out here about petitions," Commissioner Delores Coffing said. "I have absolutely no objections to petitions, provided they are circulated by local people."

Coffing was especially concerned about petitions in support of JAIL, or Judicial Accountability Initiative Law, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would allow people to sue judges but that could also lead to litigation against elected officials such as county commissioners, city council members and school board members.

and..

Commissioner Ken Davis said petition circulators are allowed to stand inside the courthouse doors to get signatures, and as long as they are not getting paid per signature, that's fine.

"If they're getting paid to get signatures, I don't agree that the taxpayers should be forced to furnish them an office to do their business in," he said. "I have no problem with allowing people to circulate petitions at the courthouse, but I think that the ways and means should be looked at about how they do that."

Uh... Guys? JAIL finished getting signatures and they're all done. It's a bit of closing the gate after the cattle are out. Not to mention that differentiating between paid and un-paid petition gatherers is probably unconstitutional.

This was silly in the first place. Now it's getting worse.

Not to be outdone by Tony Mangan of KCCR getting the scoop the prior day, the Pierre Capital Journal also reports that District 24's legislators are in for the next election. Mostly. Senator Bob Gray and Representative Ryan Olson are both in for sure, but then there's the other one:

That leaves Rep. Tim Rounds, R-Pierre, to make his mind up about running again.

"I'm leaning," he said, "I'm really leaning toward running again.

"I just haven't totally made my mind up yet. I want to serve the people of this district, I'm just not sure yet, but I'm leaning toward it."

And throngs of people crowded the state Capitol to watch Representative Rounds lean. Will he tip? More on this later as we enter hour 50 of monitoring this story.

KELO is looking for female troubles

For some reason I'm not finding it on their website anymore, but just yesterday, KELO had the following request seeking people for a story on thier website:

Are You Living In A House Of Hormones?

HealthBeat is looking for a mother-daughter team to feature in an upcoming segment. Are you game? We're looking for a mother in her 40s or 50s with a teenage daughter at home.

We want to know what it's like when the women of the house are having hormone challenges, and what you two do to handle the stress.

Please get ahold of Janie Andrews at KELO on this pressing issue. That is, if your female hormonal troubles don't have you all addled.

I had invited my wife, MP, to author a blog post on this one, but she passed. I e-mailed to her that even someone as dense as mysoginist me thought it really sounded bad and degrading. She offered to let me post on it first. (your turn now, dear.)

*update* - found it.

That's enough for now. My male hormonal issues are telling me I need to finish this cheeseburger and get back to work