#mike huether

[joeahlquist]

Sioux Falls mayor Mike Huether delivers his State of the City speech Thursday, March 31, 2016, at Carnegie Town Hall in downtown Sioux Falls, S.D.

Read about the speech here.

©Joe Ahlquist / Argus Leader

[arh521-blog]

Huether Does Not Deserve Re-election

On Tuesday April 8, 2014, the city of Sioux Falls will head to the polls to decide who will be their mayor for the next 4 years.

I plan to cast my vote for Greg Jamison.

I must admit I do not know a whole lot about Jamison. However, I know plenty about Huether to know I do not want him as my mayor.

Let me explain why:

Roads:

Many supporters of Huether claim he has greatly improved the roads of Sioux Falls. I disagree. Yes, he has gotten a lot of road work done. But, can we really say that these projects have improved the quality of the roads and positively affected traffic?

My contention is that the work Huether has started have only slightly improved some roads and has NOT improved traffic. There are plenty of roads that need attention more than the ones that have been addressed. Southeastern Avenue between 26th and 49th comes to mind. Many other smaller, more residential streets also need work more than the roads that have been worked on during Huether's term.

Furthermore, there are roads that need work to expand them to help traffic flow. The first such road that comes to mind is Cliff Avenue between 41st Street and 69th Street. Cliff needs two lanes in either direction throughout this whole stretch. Western Avenue from 57th to 85th is another stretch of road that needs two lanes in both directions.

Lastly, the work done during Huether's time as mayor has not improved traffic flow. Over the summer, most major East/West roads were torn up, and traffic was unbearable. Those roads had very little wrong with them, and when they re-opened traffic flow was not improved.

Traffic

As Sioux Falls grows, traffic will grow worse and worse. Over the past few years, traffic has been slowly getting worse. The city is set to see rapid growth over the next few years, and we are currently unprepared to handle the increased amount of traffic. In my mind there are three ways to handle this:

Expansion of roads

Speed limits

Traffic signals

As previously mentioned, roads like Cliff Avenue and Western Avenue need to be expanded.

Furthermore, traffic heading East to West and West to East is terrible. Currently, to head from the East side of town to the West side of town (or vice versa) you have the following options:

That 10th/11th/12th Street thing

26th Street (ish)

41st Street (ish)

57th Street

The interstate

That 10th/11th/12th Street thing is problematic because you need to cut through downtown, where speed limits slow down dramatically. Plus, it is far to the North. Making it difficult for those in the South and Central parts of town to utilize.

26th Street is ineffective because it runs from the east side of town only to Kiwanis Avenue (middle of town). From there you have to go up to that 10th/11th/12th Street thing or down to 41st Street. Furthermore, between I-229 and Kiwanis, 26th Street is moves down to one lane in each direction and to a speed limit of 30 MPH. There are also many school zones to contend with. In short, traffic on 26th Street is painfully slow.

41st Street is a popular street and can be valuable for travel in Sioux Falls. The big problem tough is there is a gap in 41st Street between Cliff Avenue and Southeastern Avenue, making 41st also not viable for rapid East/West travel.

57th Street is probably the best method for East/West travel. It extends across the city form the far East part of town to the far West part of town. However, its location on the South part of town makes it difficult for those on the North end of town.

To use the interstate allows for high speed travel, but you must switch interstates to get from one side to the other. This switch takes places in the far Southwest part of town, making it super inconvenient for someone who is on East 10th Street who wants to get to the Crackerbarrel on West 26th Street.

Mayor Huether has had 4 years to show he is capable of improving the traffic in Sioux Falls, and he has not shown he is going to improve this problem. I know of nothing he has done to expand our roads, build new roads, increase speed limits, or improve the traffic signals in Sioux Falls (out of town visitors hate our traffic signals).

Arrogance

Mayor Huether has taken credit for many improvements in Sioux Falls with which he had little or nothing to do. "My Man Mike" has tooted his own horn far too much. In this part of the country, a mayor needs to take a team approach to municipal government. It should be what we as a community are doing, rather than what Mike Huether has done. 

The main issue here is that Huether has taken a lot of credit for the new events center. Almost every candidate who ran for mayor in 2010 was in favor of the new events center. It would have been built if someone else had been elected. Furthermore, it was the citizens who voted to build it. The final approval came from the people, not the mayor. Also, Huether mostly ignored those who wanted the new events center downtown. The events center was built where the mayor wanted it to be built. We never got to vote on the downtown events center. This is a shame because I believe a downtown events center would have spurred great development downtown. This leads me to my next point.

Downtown

The downtown area should be the pride of any city or town, but in Sioux Falls it is not. Sioux Falls has long desired for a revitalization of downtown. There have been some projects downtown that have developed over the mayor's term. But, when it comes down to it, I do not feel any more desire to spend my time downtown then I did four years ago. Sioux Falls has the potential to have a great downtown area, but Huether has failed to deliver.

Conflicts of Interest

Challenger and current city council member Greg Jamison created and signed a pledge that he would not invest in any projects that need City Council's approval. When asked about this pledge by a reporter, Mayor Huether became rude and ended the interview.

Mr. Mayor, if you have done nothing wrong and do not plan on doing anything wrong, why the attitude? Why not sign the pledge?

IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE IN CITY HALL!!!

[politicalsmokeout]

NBP finds Huether lead (updated)

Nielson Brothers Polling has released the second part of their Sioux Falls municipal poll, in which they show incumbent Mayor Mike Huether with a moderate 48-36 lead over challenger Greg Jamison.

I'm still waiting on the full question order and crosstabs from the poll, though it does raise an eyebrow that the poll appears to have asked respondents' opinion about the direction of the city and the two candidates and city council before asking about the head-to-head matchup. Anything you ask respondents before a head-to-head question can influence how they're thinking when the main question comes up.

Heuther, in the poll, has a slightly higher approval rating than Jamison (a lower-profile figure), but also higher disapproval. Subtracting "strongly disapprove" from "strongly approve," Huether is +21 and Jamison is +17.

They also poll the at-large city council races, finding a dead heat in the Christine Erickson-Denny Pierson race, but a firm 34-20-7 lead for incumbent Rex Rolfing over Manny Steele and Emmett Reistroffer in the other at-large race -- though both races had high levels of undecided voters.

NBP is still establishing its track record, so it'll be interesting to see how this poll compares to the actual results.

The poll was conducted from March 18 to March 20, via automated push-button response, with between 500 and 600 registered voters responding to different questions.

UPDATE: Some very interesting tidbits in the crosstabs for the poll, which NBP gave me access to.

Here's two, focusing on how voters break down by party affiliation and ideology.

NBP asked respondents whether they were a Democrat, Republican or an independent. Among Democrats, Huether (a Democrat) beats Jamison (a Republican) 61-27. Among Republicans, Jamison has a slender 44-40 lead. Huether leads among independents 42-32. (There were 238 Democrats, 251 Republicans and 80 independents.)

Respondents were also asked if they consider their ideas to be liberal (96 respondents), moderate (168), conservative (196), or aligned with the Tea Party (60). 

Among liberals, Huether leads 65-16. He also leads moderates 54-33. The decisive factor is Huether combining that with a 45-37 lead among conservatives. Only among Tea Partiers does Jamison lead, 56-29.

All of that shows why the poll showed a lead for Huether -- if Jamison is running as a Republican candidate, he has to do better than a 4-point lead among Republican voters.

I also scrolled down to look at the at large council races for one more tidbit. Overall, Rex Rolfing has a huge lead in the At Large A race, with 34 percent to 20 percent for Manny Steele and 7 percent for Emmett Reistroffer. If you look at the crosstabs by ideology, Rolfing has big leads among moderates and liberals, and a narrow lead among conservatives. But Steele wins Tea Party voters 38-25 -- about what you'd expect, given Steele's outspoken conservatism in the state Legislature.

[politicalsmokeout]

Democrats for Jamison? Behind the scenes of the 2014 Sioux Falls mayoral election has been partisan politics: though no party names appear on the ballot, most people know that Mayor Mike Huether is a Democrat and that challenger Greg Jamison is a Republican, and both parties are working to elect their man.

Except not everyone. Some Republican business leaders have backed Huether this election. And some local Democratic elected officials are backing Jamison.

A reader sends in this invitation for a Jamison fundraiser Monday night. It's hosted by former city councilor Kermit Staggers -- a Republican who lost to Huether in the 2010 mayoral race -- but also by Jeff Barth and Pam Nelson. Barth, a Minnehaha County Commissioner, is the chair of the Minnehaha County Democratic Party. Nelson, the Minnehaha County Treasurer, is also a Democrat who formerly served as a statewide Public Utilities Commissioner.

In many ways this, not party divides, has been the norm in Sioux Falls city elections. Oftentimes municipal races come down not to Democrats and Republicans, but to an "establishment" party and an "outsider" party. (That's also the case in Rapid City, where incumbent mayor Sam Kooiker was a champion of the outsider faction when he unseated establishment Alan Hanks.)

UPDATE: I mistakenly described Kermit Staggers as a former city councilor; he is still on the council.

[politicalsmokeout]

A pro-Mike Huether mailer, listing 10 accomplishments Huether says warrant another term as mayor.

I want to see campaign mailers you're receiving. Email them to me at [email protected] or mail them to the Argus Leader c/o David Montgomery.

[politicalsmokeout]

Jamison's disappointing financial start

Republican Greg Jamison's bid to unseat Democratic Mayor Mike Huether isn't roaring out of the gate.

In his 2013 fundraising, reported yesterday, Jamison collected just $18,650. That's three times less than Huether, who raised more than $51,000.

Neither man's fundraising includes personal expenses. Huether spent more than $125,000 on his 2010 mayoral campaign but has yet to open his checkbook. So this fundraising gap solely reflects the candidates' ability to raise money from supporters.

First: Sioux Falls campaign finance limits function on an annual basis. So everyone who gave the $1,000 maximum to either candidate in 2013 can give $1,000 again in 2014. That means Huether has 29 wealthy people he can go back to this year for another $29,000, people who are already sold on his candidacy. Jamison has only 10.

Second, the fundraising shows Jamison's incomplete success at unifying the Sioux Falls Republican Party behind him. Republicans have been highlighting Huether's status as a Democrat to try to tie him to the national party's brand, unpopular here in South Dakota. In 2012, Sioux Falls had 36,300 Mitt Romney voters and 31,700 Barack Obama voters, so the strategy makes sense. But there are far more than 10 regular Republican donors in Sioux Falls. There's far more Republican donors than the 30 who gave Jamison any significant money at all.

In fact, many of those big GOP donors can be found on Huether's campaign finance report, not Jamison's. Sanford CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft gave Mitt Romney $9,000 in 2012; he gave Huether $1,000 in 2013. First Premier CEO Dana Dykhouse gave Romney $2,500 and Huether $1,000. Kirby Financial president Dan Kirby gave Romney $2,500 and Heuther $1,000. Attorney Doug Hajek, husband of Republican state Rep. Anne Hajek, gave $1,000 to both Romney and Huether.

These type of people not only have lots of money to give to campaigns, they're also generally well-known and respected, and can be influencers to bring other people on board with their favored candidates. For whatever reason -- liking Huether's work as mayor, personal friendship with him, trying to curry favor with the current administration -- they're backing Huether.

Jamison's failure (to date, at least) to wrap up the GOP donor class is a bad sign for his hopes of unifying Republicans in the April election. 

Remember, unlike federal or state races, the Sioux Falls mayoral race is officially nonpartisan. Jamison won't have an "R" next to his name on the ballot, nor Huether a "D." Uniting a political party will take conscious work on Jamison's part. If he can't circle the Republican wagons, his route to victory becomes a lot harder, requiring peeling off lots of Democrats and left-leaning voters from Huether. That's not impossible. But attracting those disaffected Democrats is at cross-purposes with telling Republicans that Huether is a dastardly Obama supporter. There are a lot of routes to 50.1 percent in Sioux Falls, but you can't take all of them at once.

(And all of this is overlooking the simple fact that Huether, with a greater ability to self-fund, is starting the home stretch of the campaign with a $30,000 head start over Jamison.)

[politicalsmokeout]

Barth considering run for Sioux Falls mayor

Minnehaha County commissioner, former U.S. House candidate and current Minnehaha County Democratic Party chair Jeff Barth might run against fellow Democrat Mike Huether in the Sioux Falls mayoral race.

That's the scoop this afternoon from my colleague Janelle Atyeo:

Barth’s concerns about rising rates of crime and poverty in the city are what’s prompted him to consider a run for the city’s top job, he said. He said the mayor is not doing enough to address those issues.

“While we’re building swimming pools and football fields, we’re allowing an underclass to gain more than a foothold in our community,” he said.

He would like to see the city contribute funding to facilities such as the Glory House that offer treatment substance abuse and facilities that help inmates re-enter society when their term is served. He would also like to see the city focused on bringing more living wage jobs to Sioux Falls.

The Sioux Falls mayor position is officially nonpartisan, and candidates of all parties run in a single race. The top two candidates advance to a runoff.

In the 2010 mayoral race, many Republicans felt that too many GOP candidates divided the conservative voters and allowed Huether to win.

Could Democrats now be facing a similar situation?

The election is a long way off, and a lot can change. Perhaps Barth will be able to claim victory from bringing new issues to bear and then pass on running. But this can't be considered good news for Huether.

Barth is a spunky campaign who made national headlines with a viral video in his 2012 U.S. House campaign:

But 100,000 pageviews didn't stop Barth from getting his butt kicked by Matt Varilek in the Democratic primary, 72-28.

[heardinthehall-blog]

Questions from the city about archive storage

I recently wrote a story about a proposed plan to build a museum archive building. Under the plan, a $3.8 million building would be built, with the city and county each paying a third, and the last third coming form the sale of some donated land.

Siouxland Heritage Museum officials say there is a desperate need for the storage, with some items being stored in an attic that is deemed not structurally sound enough to handle a vast majority of items.

Some were obviously on board with the plan, some were not, particularly Mayor Mike Huether, who told me there needed to be some serious questions asked of this plan before the city would move forward.

No decisions have been made yet, and likely won't until 2014 budget talks wrap up later this summer.

My colleague, Peter Harriman, covers Minnehaha County Commission, and said this list of questions from the city was received and discussed today. He passed it along to me:

City questions for archive storage