COUNTY COMMI$$ION

For the people! Get it?

Let’s be honest, no one really knows what the County Commissioners do. Sure, some people may be aware that there’s five commissioners who gather themselves around a special officious-looking semi-circular table while a very few perturbed citizens nervously petition them with various and sundry complaints. 

But what do they DO? I have been asking around, getting some feedback from some of the locals, and I have found out to my (not) surprise that the general consensus is one of bafflement. You can see the thoughts in their eyes as they stare into near-space, “What is a heckin County commissioner, & what kinda guess can I dream up that makes me not sound like a dummy?”

But I suppose we're all dummies, or at least most of us are; because I certainly didn't have a clue until recently, after I decided to start paying attention to who actually runs things in my town, county and state.

Of course. County Commissioners are in charge of a WHOLE LOT of real world issues that affect every single person living in the county.

From the Minnehaha County website, here’s a description of their overall responsibility: “Accordingly, Commissioners conduct long-range planning, approve budgets, adopt Resolutions and Ordinances, enact policies and procedures, and further administer the various appointed County departments.”

Somewhat vague, but the gist of it is that five of our fellow citizens are elected to make decisions -sometimes very large ones - that can have enormous and long-lasting impacts on all citizens in their county. It is important work, to be sure, and work that most of us are happy to have others take care of for us. Serving on the county commission is an act of service, and I appreciate anyone who works serving their fellow man, whether it’s in government, retail, building trades, health, military, law enforcement and so on. The salary for a Minnehaha County Commissioner is a little over $30,000 a year, which isn’t a lot these days. That'll buy you 1/3 of a sweet F150 in today's Monopoly money.

So why do certain people spend their time and money trying SO HARD to get elected to these positions? We’d like to think that they do it out of a sense of civic pride and community, which is most likely somewhat of a factor, at least early on. But is that the real reason they do it? What if there was a profit motive? What if certain individuals desire these positions for reasons that have nothing to do with serving the public, and instead will bring them power and money some time into the future. What if Dad has some hoity-toity friends who think it would really help (the people!) - if you were to slippety-slide on in to the commission seat.

How could we ever know if our elected officials are getting undue influence from private companies, lobbyists and other politicians? Fortunately, here in SD we have a “Campaign Finance Reporting System” through the Secretary of State’s office, which shows which groups  elected officials have taken (and given) money from.

Take for example County Commissioner Joe Kippley. Joe has benefited from a couple of large contributions from players in the construction trades (see pics below). Now, everyone knows that I am a huge fan of the builders in our society, so I am hesitant to criticize anyone in that industry. But, I am highly suspicious of politicians, particularly ones like Joe who can’t manage to hide their disdain for his constituents who see things differently than he does. I think it’s fair to ask the question of why would these companies think it a good investment spending this much money to get someone elected to the county commission? What could they possibly gain from it?  Are some commissioners getting commissions?

Knife River has made no secret of their desire to acquire the W.H Lyons Fairgrounds for the purpose of mining the rock underneath it. See article here>>> https://listen.sdpb.org/business-economics/2022-07-20/mining-company-wants-to-buy-sioux-empire-fairgrounds-county-says-its-not-that-easy

I’ll give you one guess who can decide the fate of the county-owned Fairgrounds property? 

If you guessed the County Commission, WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!

To be 100% clear, I am definitely NOT making any accusations of graft here. No no no. It’s just interesting, is what I’m saying. Local governance can be interesting, if one looks into it.

My introduction to Joe Kippley came about last fall (2023) when I tuned into a Youtube recording -

- from the Sept 26 2023 meeting, during which I witnessed some of the commissioners having ah, let’s say “a moment” with our Auditor Leah Anderson and also some of the taxpayers who showed up to express their opinions. You can read about it in this post -

https://open.substack.com/pub/cjlarson/p/the-rise-of-sketpicism?r=b7ypx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web - which was published in the Dakota Scout.

So I’m obviously not a fan of people like Mr. Kippley. But it’s not personal. Don’t know him, never met him. I just don’t like politicians who look down on taxpayers, call them “sore losers” and insult them when questioned about issues like election integrity. You work for us, Mr. Kippley, even though we didn’t write you a $10,000 check. Our tax dollars pay your salary, meager though it may be.

We matter.

Now that we are in election season, we have an obligation to make sure that the people who want to join the County Commission are doing it for the right reasons, don’tcha think? Remember, those reasons should 100% be “serving the public” and nothing more.

Enter Joe’s dad Dan Kippley, who is one of the candidates running in the June 4th election. People like myself, who know very little about the movers and shakers in this town, who aren’t members of the country club, we may be too ignorant to understand why a well-connected man like Dan wants to spend his time and money running for such a low-paid position, that 99% of citizens know nothing about. I mean, it can’t have anything to do with his history in the building materials handling industry as a “economic and business development representative for Rail to Road and Ellis & Eastern”. Sure, Eastern and Ellis is owned by Knife River, but…..wait , where have we heard that name before…? Hmmmm…..

Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Probably Dan just wants some more father/son time with Joe, and who can blame him?! It’s a busy busy world these days.

But a closer look at Dan Kippley’s political maneuverings shows that he has a PAC (see below pic) called “Sioux Empire Better Government Committee”, which received a $10,000 contribution from - you guessed it! - Knife River, along with another $10,000 from Associated General Contractors Of SD; then turned around and gave $10,000 to another PAC called “South Dakota Strong”, which is registered to Lee Schoenbeck, in Watertown. This connection might be puzzling if one didn’t know that Lee Schoenbeck, who’s son Jake is currently running in a Sioux Falls district 2 House primary election, is one of the most powerful politicians in South Dakota. A quick perusal of SD Strong’s financial disclosures show donations from some of the wealthiest people in South Dakota, so Lee must really be a good producer.

                                 Contributions to SD Strong PAC

 

It’s no surprise that both Lee Schoenbeck (please note that when addressing him, he prefers to be called “President Pro Temp Schoenbeck”) and Dan Kippley are proud supporters of the Summit pipeline scheme. There’s simply too much money to be made for some politicians to sit on the sidelines, and these two are hustlers. They get things done! For South Dakota farmers of course. It's all for the farmers.

Oh wait…

Every farmer, rancher and landowner I meet is against the idea of eminent domain for private gain. But the “farmers” are being used as poster children for the pipeline project for manipulative romantic reasons, while the actual beneficiaries are the businesses on the periphery: ethanol, railroads, pipeline manufacturers and of course the politicians who play along. The politicians who refuse to play along, instead taking a stand for landowner rights, get left out of the process and threatened in various ways.

Or maybe I’m just being a wackjob nutcase, and the CO2 pipeline business is actually GOOD for all of South Dakotans. And maybe these politicians trading dollars with all these special interests, climbing the money ladder while rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful actually BENEFIT the average working class taxpayer. Yes, that must be it.

As for our Minnehaha County Commission election, who could ever know the true motives for those that pursue it? Certainly not me. I’m just a humble ignorant taxpayer, thankful for the integrity and diligence of those that sacrifice so much to serve us.

Thank you Heroes!

In late BREAKING news, it has just today been announced that our intrepid Joe Kippley has been annointed the Sioux Falls City Hall “Health Director", whatever that means. And good for him! It's about time an opportunity opened up for these Kippleys. Mayor Paul TenHaken chose Joe out of all the 250,000 local residents for reasons that had nothing to do with Kippley's donation to Paul's campaign, or his connections to the most powerful operators in the state, we can be assured. He was simply the only person qualified for the job. Don’t worry though, Joe will still find time somehow in his busy schedule to fulfill his duties at his fulltime day job at Sanford, while faithfully serving the interests of John Q. Public in his role as Minnehaha County Commissioner with (fingers crossed!) a soon-to-be double dose of Kippley.

FOR THE PEOPLE!!!!