Madville Times

Climate Change Legislation: Green Jobs for SD, or Attack on (Corporate) Ag?

SDPB's Charles Michael Ray posts a Dakota Digest report on how wind power is boosting the Howard economy. Randy Perry of the forward-thinking Rural Learning Center says that green jobs and green energy have brought more than 230 jobs to Howard this decade. Unfortunately, Miner County as a whole has seen a decline in its workforce from 1500 to 1245 over this decade.

Perry believes, as I do, that climate change legislation would bring even more high-tech, high-pay jobs to Howard and all of South Dakota. But out stomps hog farmer, Clearwater Township chairman Larry Haak to tell us climate change legislation will raise farm input costs and give the EPA power to regulate large farms.

More EPA regulation? Haak evidently missed the point that the American Clean Energy and Security Act is actually a market-based solution that would forestall EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. Haak also evidently missed the point that climate change legislation will do less harm to farmers than unmitigated climate change itself.

But missing the point is to be expected of a vice-chair of the Miner County Farm Bureau. The Farm Bureau, a big corporate lobby founded by the New York Chamber of Commerce and Rockefeller money, is well known for its opposition to climate change legislation or anything else that might force the corporate ag-industrial complex to behave responsibly.

You'd think the average farmer, paragon of patriotism and self-sufficiency, would see the case business leaders and even a South Carolina conservative and former Marine can make for how climate change legislation is good for America's economy, energy independence, and national security (good work, Badlands Blue!). I guess the Farm Bureau is all about flying the flag... until we ask them to support environmental action and innovation that might actually bring small farmers and rural communities new income streams and greater independence from the big ag processors.

...read more about South Dakota's future at the Madville Times!
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Citi Chief Stiffs KELO's Kennecke

I've ridden KELO rather hard the last couple months for occasionally seeming to favor Senator John Thune (by the way, they did re-admit my post, following the requested revision), big-town convenience over small-town basic services, wealthy big-name candidates, Big Stone II, and Senator Thune (again!). Such seeming servility to power gets my goat. Where are the hard questions, the pricking of conscience good journalists should do?

I note with some small renewed sense of journalistic solidarity that even the corporate-owned professionals at KELO will dare to question the powers that be... and get the cold shoulder from those powers for such audacity.

Angela Kennecke recounts in a KELO blog post (and this was last Monday—I regret not finding it sooner!) her unsuccessful attempt to get Citi CEO Vikram Pandit to answer a few questions:

...I was promised by the public relations people who were handling Pandit’s visit to Sioux Falls that I would have a chance to talk to him before or after the event. But once I arrived, I was told by his assistants there was no time. I asked if I could just ask a question or two and they wanted to know what those questions would be about. I told them I wanted to know about student loan jobs, the current controversy and government action over top executive pay, as well as Citibank’s third quarter losses and how the bank would repay the government $45 billion in taxpayer money it owes from the TARP. At the end of the roundtable Pandit was taking part in, his assistant informed me I couldn’t ask the question about executive pay. I said OK just so I could get any questions in at all. It wasn’t looking good. Then he turned around and told me I couldn’t ask any questions at all. However, I tried to get one question in and walked up to Pandit to ask about the student loan jobs at Citibank and he turned away from me and refused to answer anything at all [Angela Kennecke, "Since You Own a Share of Citigroup, Do You Deserve Answers?" KELOLand.com, 2009.10.26].

Ouch! Stone cold shoulder! Not cool.

Kennecke doesn't take it personally—she and other reporters have been treated worse by better. But she nails better than I can the fundamental problem with CEO Pandit's arrogance:

...the problem I have with Citigroup’s and Pandit’s actions today is that this is no longer a “private” company. You, the taxpayers, own a third of Citigroup Inc. And while they were taking your money and losing $3.2 billion in the third quarter, the top 21 Citigroup executives were taking $390.2 million in pay [Kennecke, 2009.10.26].

Good call, Ms. Kennecke. And she says it well: trying to get answers to such questions for all of us citizens from the powers that be is exactly her job. Keep at it!

...read more about South Dakota journalism -- amateur and professional -- at the Madville Times!
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Investors Quit Big Stone II: Harbinger for Hyperion?

Could good news breed good news? Might the death of the proposed Big Stone II coal plant in northeast South Dakota signal the impending extinction of Hyperion's proposal to bring dinosaur power to the southeast corner of the state? Big Stone II failed because it couldn't convince investors to bet their money on a big unsustainable energy project. Backers of the Grant County coal plant were trying to buck a negative investment trend that has seen 100—now 101—coal plants defeated or abandoned since 2000 as high rollers like Warren Buffet realize stuffing their money in the coal-power mattress is not a wise move.

Now Hyperion has to convince these same cautious energy investors to sink their capital into a project that will use an even dirtier fuel source and cause even more environmental disruption in its construction and operation. Shell Oil says the tar sands oil Hyperion would refine is cleaner than coal... but Shell also made $351M in profit on its tar sands operations in quarter 2 this year. Oil refineries are also more likely to explode than coal plants (pace BP).

As Dean Spader points out in a Sunday letter to that Sioux Falls paper, the Hyperion refinery would take 6,000 acres of some of South Dakota's most productive farm land out of production. "No advanced civilization destroys and pollutes its source of food," says Spader. "Nor should any Christian nation ever deliberately annihilate rich cropland when 1 billion people are starving."

Far be it from me to appeal to the Christian sentiments of venture capitalists. The business case alone is enough to make them back away from refineries. Valero, the biggest refiner in America, is losing money on oil and switching off refineries. The only bright spot in its portfolio: all those ethanol refineries they bought from bankrupt Verasun.

Blame the recession, blame ACESA... heck, blame me and my fellow bike-riding propagandists. The cold hard facts of the market say investors are looking for smarter, cleaner, more sustainable places to put their money than fossil fuels.

Memo to Preston Phillips, Albert Huddleston, et al.: have you thought of installing wind turbines and solar panels on that land you've optioned? There's some decent Class 3 wind down around Elk Point, and we can get you just about as much solar potential as down in Dallas. Plus, you wouldn't be dependent on foreign oil!

...comments and suggestions for tossing refineries into the tar pits of history welcome at the Madville Times!

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Madden Report Misses Distress Among Keystone Pipeline Neighbors

Report Also Finds Going Rate for Land Rights:
$40,000 per Mile

The South Dakota Public Utility Commission begins its hearing today on the Keystone XL pipeline permit. A public input session tomorrow (Tuesday) evening at 6 p.m. will be part of a week-long process in Room 414 of the State Capitol Building in Pierre.

The state appears ready to propagate the illusion that another strip of sovereign Canadian territory across South Dakota is hunky-dory. SD Tar Sands Pipelines highlights a report submitted to the Keystone XL docket by economist Michael Madden on behalf of the state. Dr. Madden assesses the socioeconomic impacts of the Keystone I pipeline TransCanada is currently completing in eastern South Dakota. Somewhat maddeningly, Dr. Madden finds that among farmers he interviewed near the pipeline route he didn't get to have the project on their land, "it was sensed that there was feeling of lack of good fortune on their part." He finds "no major worry road rehabilitation would not be performed by the company" [p. 13].

Dr. Madden evidently avoided speaking to Mike and Sue Sibson—"pipeline shoved up my..." doesn't strike me as an expression of "good fortune." Dr. Madden also apparently didn't catch the KDLT story (now deleted—evidently KDLT can't afford the server space to archive a few kilobytes of text each week) about TransCanada tearing up roads and dragging its feet on repairs in Beadle County. (For more on road concerns, see the Beadle County Commission minutes from July 30.)

But let's back up. Where did that "lack of good fortune" comment come from? Dr. Madden appears to have discovered how much money it took to keep landowners quiet and perhaps make other neighbors wish they could have cashed in on black gold and perpetual environmental disruption. While landowners were bound to secrecy by confidentiality agreements with TransCanada, Dr. Madden appears to have wheedled from at least a few of his interviewees some numbers.

Although exact numbers were not easily acquired from those interviewed, it appears that in the area where these interviews were conducted a typical access easement involved a payment of approximately $40,000 per mile of land. In addition ample mitigation has been arranged for loss ofcrop or grassland production for the interruption in production caused by construction activity and post-construction restoration. No one interviewed indicated that the amounts involved were unfair. In talking to other farm operators who lived near the project, but had no land on the corridor, it was sensed that there was feeling of lack of good fortune on their part [Madden report to PUC, p. 13].

$40,000 per mile. Given a 150-foot construction easement, that's $2,200 per acre. Compare that to $1,863–$2,634 ag land values, depending on the neighborhood.

But here's the real kicker: $40K per mile, across about 220 miles through eastern South Dakota. Total TransCanada would be shelling out to our landowners by Dr. Madden's estimate: $8.8 million... the current price of the amount of oil that will shoot through the Keystone pipeline every four and a half hours.

Looks to me like TransCanada bought its way across our state with payments hardly bigger than rounding error on their final balance sheet.

Why am I not feeling good fortune?

...comments welcome at the PUC (Room 414, State Capitol, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 6 p.m.) and at the Madville Times!
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Little Wound Class A Team Champs at DSU Interp

Several days ago, Dr. Newquist's post on Aaron Huey's Pine Ridge photo essay in the New York Times sparked a fair amount of discussion (review also here and here) in the South Dakota blogosphere about the state of our Indian reservations.

More than tangential to that discussion, this good news: the Little Wound High School oral interp team won the Class A team championship at last weekend's Karl E. Mundt Dakota Invitational here at Dakota State University.

Mundt Dakota Invitational Class A Team Champs, 2009: Little Wound High School Mustangs. Pictured, left to right:

Back: Coach Dan Snethen, Joe Bear Heels, Kyle Clifford, Wiyaka His Horse Is Thunder, Tressa Featherman, Elizabeth Charging Crow, Tyler One Horn, Chuck Good Voice Elk; DSU Foundation Development Officer for Endowments and Scholarships Beth Knuths.
Middle: Melissa Hernandez, Harley Ferguson, Shyla White Lance, Tara Dull Knife, Fern Chase Alone, asst coach Crystal Apple, Tara One Horn, Kayla Hernandez
Front: Liandra Young Bear, Halana Richards, Helene Stilson, Elaina Pourier

[Photo credit: Toby Uecker]

The Little Wound team distinguishes itself just by making it to the contest: their six-hour drive was the longest trip made by any of our contestants this year. For ten years, coach Dan Snethen has been rounding up busloads of speakers and student assistants to make the long trip to DSU. When he first brought kids to the contest, Snethen's interpers struggled just to place higher than fifth in preliminary rounds. In recent years, the team has gotten stronger, placing individuals and readers theater teams in finals against traditional interp powers like Sioux Falls Lincoln and Sioux Valley.

And this year, for the first time, they won the Class A team championship. Nice work, kids. And kudos to coach Dan Snethen for the time and effort he devotes to giving these kids some great opportunities.

...comments always on at the Madville Times...
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Blog brings Neighborly Conversation: Pitts Sets record Straight

One of the greatest merits of blogging is that it gets me into conversations that might never otherwise happen... often with people who vigorously disagree with me. Sometimes that conversation happens online, sometimes off.

Sometimes it's a two-and-a-half-hour conversation with a fellow Lake County resident whose language I have called "selfish, inconsistent, and at least unneighborly if not insulting."

David Pitts called Thursday evening.

From the top: Mr. Pitts called to ensure that at least two issues were straightened out:

Contrary to the characterization I gave in my original article on the bike trail the city wants to build across the land he farms on the southwest edge of Madison, David Pitts and his wife Gloria do not live in or by Ramona. They lived up in that neck of the woods for a long time, and Mrs. Pitts was postmaster in Ramona, but a year or so ago, they moved into Madison. David Pitts is a taxpaying resident of the city that wants a piece of his farm land.
Mr. Pitts also felt I dismissed his arguments against the bike trail and said he should have just said no. (I believe he may be referencing this passage from my Oct. 22 post: "I have deep sympathy for arguments in defense of personal property. If Mr. Pitts wishes to simply say, "It's my land, and I don't want to sell," that's fine.") Mr. Pitts emphasized that he had already told the powers that be "No" to this project five times—six, if you count the open house we both attended last week.

Mr. Pitts and I have lived in the same county for my whole life. He's my dad's age; his son Gary graduated from Madison HS a year before I did. It took this long for the two of us to end up in the same room last week, two feet apart over the same maps. But even there, David and I didn't talk. He had more important people at whom to direct his questions and concerns than a strange skinny guy with a backpack. I went to the meeting to listen, not argue. I checked my rebuttive urges until I had slept on what I'd heard a couple nights. Then I published a pretty stern critique that I knew wouldn't go down well with some readers.

Mr. Pitts said he was pretty steamed when a copy of the text reached him. When the phone rang and he introduced himself, I was ready for steam and checking my own valves. But we never got hot with each other. For two and a half hours, we had a perfectly neighborly and serious conversation about property rights, farming, bike trails, and local government.

Mr. Pitts and I still disagree on the value of a bike trail. I've given my reasons; let me give Mr. Pitts's view some air time so we all—including some of the folks who are more committed to building this bike trail than I am—can better understand where he's coming from.

Mr. Pitts has lived in this county all his life, just like me. His great-grandfather homesteaded here back in 1880, beating my forebears to this turf by a good 60+ years. He says he wants to see the land he has in this county remain in the family. He has at least as much reason for attachment to his patches of Lake County as I have to mine.

Mr. Pitts has honest concerns about the mingling of recreation and industrial agriculture. He sustains his land and productivity with heavy equipment and big chemicals. The big sprayer drivers and the crop dusters are as stingy as they can be with those expensive chemicals, but there will always be some drift. Right now, Mr. Pitts sees the fenceline, ditch, and raised roadway as a reasonable buffer to harm to passersby. Invite them onto the other side of that ditch on a ribbon of asphalt, and Mr. Pitts says his effective operating area will be reduced much more than the width of the trail and a flat strip of grass next to it.

(I did suggest going organic; Mr. Pitts said it would take too long to cycle the land into alternative production methods and turn a profit again.)

I haven't seen case law to justify Mr. Pitts's concerns about his liability for injuries on a trail crossing his land (and I'm reading up on SDCL 20-9 to see if it applies). But Mr. Pitts's concerns are reinforced by a grim experience on his land 22 years ago. His son went hunting with a couple other boys. Those other boys were walking the creek bed, one on each side, while Mr. Pitts's son waited at the end of the creek. A pheasant flew between the two walkers. One boy turned, shot from the hip.

There were 110 pellets in the shell that boy fired. The doctor took 97 pellets out of the other boy.

Mr. Pitts's liability insurance paid for the boy's medical bills. He was thankful worse didn't happen. But his insurer told him that, if he had charged a fee for the use of his land, his liability would have been much greater. So now, when the city asks him to accept payment for a recreational trail on his land, he puts two and two together and gets a concern informed by grim experience about having to pay for others' accidents.

Now as a businessman, Mr. Pitts could probably find out what the additional cost of liability insurance might be to cover the additional use his land would experience with a bike trail on it. He could add that to an estimate of the bushels of corn or beans lost to a 3-6 acre strip of pavement and grass. He would then have a good picture of what the city would have to offer to make the trail easement worth his while.

But interestingly, the city and other organizers have not once made a formal offer. No officials have told Mr. Pitts what the city will be willing to pay for the privilege of laying a trail on his land. In his dealings with the city, Mr. Pitts has gotten the distinct feeling that the city is more like a bully than a partner or the entity whose bills he pays with his taxes.

Cases in point: When the first proposal for a trail to Lake Herman started floating around a few years ago, Mr. Pitts says a trail organizer asked if they could sit down and discuss the plan over coffee. Mr. Pitts said he could do that some time... but he didn't hear anything else on the topic until a county commission meeting that considered applying for the grant to build the trail. Mr. Pitts says trail supporters considered circulating a petition seeking support to obtain land for the trail "by any means necessary" even before making any straightforward financial offers to landowners like him.

Mr. Pitts also notes that, as he understood it, the federal grant eventually obtained to trail up the neighborhood was designated for a trail along Highway 34. However (and this is all grapevine and no documentation, but I'm giving Mr. Pitts his say here), he heard that some of the bigger businesses along Highway 34 west of town didn't want the trail crossing their lots, and the city backed off that plan. So Mr. Pitts can't help getting the feeling that the city is just shopping around for little guys like him to push around.

His experience with the surveyors this spring didn't inspire any further confidence in our city leaders. With little warning, Mr. Pitts received a letter from Ulteig Engineering saying they would be coming onto his land to survey along the creek for a possible trail. Having just put in his wheat, Mr. Pitts was not eager to have surveyors tearing through his field on a four-wheeler. He called Ulteig, expressed his opposition, and apparently got them to call off the survey.

Soon afterward, however, he received another letter, this one from Madison's city attorney, Mr. Jencks, saying surveyors would be entering his land under statutory authority. Mr. Pitts couldn't remember the statute number in our conversation, but he says that when he showed his lawyer the letter, the lawyer looked up the law and found it dealt with abandoned mines and still required owner permission. Another phone call, another cancellation... but this time not before marking flags had been set in Mr. Pitts's field. Those flags are on wires. Leave one in the field, and it will run right through the combine and into the straw. Feed that straw to livestock, have a cow chaw down that wire, and that wire could kill the animal. Mr. Pitts thus spent some extra time in the field picking up flags to make sure what he sees as an unauthorized entry on his land didn't also result in the loss of a valuable critter.

Given what Mr. Pitts told me Thursday night, it's not hard to construct a narrative where, far from being the bad guy, Mr. Pitts is the average little guy, just trying to make a living and keep his land for himself and his kids while the powers that be—powers who wages he's paid for years with his sales tax and now property tax dollars—try to push him around.

So maybe we can understand a little better why Mr. Pitts might be inclined to offer some stiff resistance to a plan that could lead to the city taking his land. And in the face of such resistance, maybe we'll have to accept a compromise and live with widening the county road for a less-than-ideal but better-than-current bike route.

That's a discussion we as a community need to have. The best decisions will come from an open, above-board discussion where everyone, including David Pitts, gets a say.

...comments always welcome at the Madville Times!
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Pine Beetles Dig Climate Change; Pines Less Pleased

Remember the story about Harney Peak trails being shut down for timber cutting? Rangers are trying to thin the trees and minimize the spread of those darn pine beetles.

Where did those pine beetles come from? Us. Climate change:

SARAH GARDNER: But wait a minute. Explain for us how this little beetle has anything to do with climate change? Because, I mean, my understanding is that the pine beetle is a native species, right? It's always been there. And a lot of westerners believe the only reason it's gotten out of hand is because we haven't been thinning out the forests enough, right?

SAM EATON: That hasn't helped. And you throw in fire suppression and the beetles basically have an all-you-can-eat buffet of lodge pole and Ponderosa pine. But the scientists I talked to -- like Jesse Logan, who's been studying the beetles for decades -- say the main thing driving this outbreak is human-caused global warming.

JESSE LOGAN: It's by the actions of people. It's directly our actions that are taking these forests out.

SAM: Let me connect the dots here. Logan says pine beetles have always been held in check by deep winter freezes. But that 2-degree increase in average temperatures you mentioned earlier, Sarah, has meant fewer cold snaps -- especially in the high elevations of the Rockies. Basically, the pine beetle couldn't have asked for better breeding conditions [Sarah Gardner and Sam Eaton, "Climate Change in Our Own Backyards," Marketplace, 2009.10.27].

Marketplace is running a big series on climate change; part 4 runs this evening (SDPB Radio, 19:00 CDT). Each piece is lengthy and worth the listen. The series webpage includes lots of resources on climate change science and economic impacts.

Climate change: despite what one Russian scientist and a Senate minority report want to believe, it's not the sun. Really. (Keep reading, if you're interested in actual science....)

...comments welcome at the Madville Times...
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Munsterman to Medicaid Patients: Drop Dead

Where is George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism when we need it?

Governor Rounds says increased enrollment in Medicaid may set the state back another $40 million. Candidate Scott Munsterman's solution: kick people off Medicaid.

Munsterman said the state should scale back Medicaid eligibility and provide vouchers to purchase health insurance for catastrophic events.

He also called for more personal responsibility on the part of Medicaid recipients.

“We have a higher rate of medical care within our Medicaid system than other people do who have their own insurance,” he said. “We need to look at deductibles, we need to look at co-pays. We need to have a program that they can engage in, and become responsible, too” [David Montgomery, "Munsterman Says Medicaid Eligibility Must be Scaled Back in SD," Pierre Capitol Journal, 2009.10.27].

More personal responsibility—that's conservative code for not my problem.

Sure, we can probably find folks who take advantage of Medicaid (just like we can find insurance execs who take advantage of their clients... but I don't hear Munsterman calling for dropping the hammer on that system). But the problem the state faces in funding Medicaid is not a sudden surge of goldbrickers. The problem is thousands of responsible South Dakotans who have lost their jobs or/and their health insurance and have nowhere else to turn to get their families decent medical care. They don't want charity; they don't want to face the stigma of irresponsibility that conservatives like Munsterman keep piling onto folks who need help through no fault of their own. But the recession is hammering them, the flu is coming, and they just want to be healthy and not bankrupt.

The proper response from society is to say to these neighbors, "All right, we'll get you through." Candidate Munsterman's response is plain old class warfare—if folks need help, it must be their fault, and they should pay for their irresponsibility.

Practically, his proposal makes about as much sense as cutting unemployment benefits during a recession. It continues the long, sad history of Republican "leaders" unwilling to take the lead on getting South Dakota as a community to recognize our common obligations to each other in tough times. Blame the poor, demand nothing of the well-off: typical GOP.

Update 2009.10.29 07:10 CDT: A reader forwards this breakdown of South Dakota's Medicaid enrollment and spending. The data come from 2006 through 2008, so they don't capture the recession-related surge in Medicaid enrollment. But in FY2006, here's who was on Medicaid in South Dakota:

Medicaid Enrollment	SD	US	SD	US
Total Enrollment, FY2006	118,500	58,714,800	-	-	% of total residents
Children	70,100	29,182,400	59.2	49.7	% of Medicaid enrollees
Adults	20,100	14,879,700	17.0	25.3	% of Medicaid enrollees
Elderly	12,400	6,116,200	10.5	10.4	% of Medicaid enrollees
Disabled	15,900	8,536,500	13.4	14.5	% of Medicaid enrollees

source: State Medicaid Fact Sheet, StateHealthFacts.org, Kaiser Family Foundation, downloaded 2009.10.29

83% of the people Dr. Munsterman thinks need to take more personal responsibility for their health care are children, disabled, or elderly. Evidently the Republican philosophy is to balance the state budget on the backs of those who can't fight back.

...comments and prescriptions for humane public policy welcome at the Madville Times!
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South Dakota Shirks Responsibility for Higher Ed Funding

Brookings can produce some spectacular citizen journalism: Amy Dunkle graces the pages of The Post with a wide-ranging assessment of the cost of higher education in South Dakota.

There are lots of important lessons in Dunkle's report. South Dakota students and voters should pay particular attention to these numbers: while our governor and Legislature (and candidates for those jobs) may claim South Dakota has increased its funding for higher education, the truth is we citizens have been derelict in our duty.

Since 1999, the state's contribution (read: we taxpayer's contribution) to higher education has increased from $112 million to $174 million. That's about a 4.5% annual rate of increase. Not bad, right? Well, Board of Regents data (page 33 of this PDF) indicate that over the past decade, higher education's share of the state's general fund appropriations has stayed almost flat, actually slipping just a tick from 15.89% in 1998 to 15.33% in 2008. Sure, more tax dollars are going toward our universities, but the increase barely keeps up with the general inflation of the state budget.

In other words, when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is, South Dakota has not given higher education any higher priority than it did ten years ago.

Our universities are spending more and doing more, but the cost is increasingly borne by students and faculty. Tuition and fees are going up faster than the taxpayers' share. AsDunkle points out from BoR data, " the state’s support level was about 58 percent in 1999, leaving 42 percent for the student body. Today, that margin has shifted to about 52 percent for the students and 48 percent for the state."SDSU President David Chicoine calls that a "dramatic reversal" in higher ed funding in our state. Faculty are also bearing a greater share of the funding burden, as they face greater pressure to hustle research grants for their campuses.

Lacking the responsibility to pay our own way, we the taxpayers of South Dakota continue to believe we can rely on someone else—our students and the feds—to pay for the public good of education. Former SDSU president Peggy Miller calls us out on that irresponsibility:

“We have got to make the investment. You do not reap what you do not sow,” Miller said. “If we continue to fail to sow, we aren’t going to get the future we deserve.”

Simply put, Miller said, “We grownups are going to have to step up to the plate and pay our fair share” [Amy Dunkle, "State Universities’ Enrollments Rising Without Much Financial Help from the State," ThePostSD.com, 2009.10.27].

I hope every gubernatorial candidate will read Dunkle's full report and weigh in on whether they think the status quo is acceptable, or whether they are willing to call South Dakotans back to their common responsibility to invest in higher education.

...comments and proposals for responsible funding mechanisms welcome at the Madville Times!
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Thune: Stop the Bailouts?

I learn from Amanda Nolz that President Obama just signed into law more stimulus... for farmers! HR 2997 is actually the appropriations act for agriculture, rural development, the Food and Drug Administration, and other federal programs. It includes some increases that one would think will be good for South Dakota farmers...

$4 billion more for food stamps
$1.9 billion more for school lunches (and breakfasts, I imagine)
$290 million to keep struggling dairy farmers afloat (maybe Rick Millner can pay his bills)
$60 million to buy up dairy products for public food programs

And Senator John Thune, champion of ending federal bailouts, voted aye on this federal bailout of dairy farmers.
Let the free market rule, right?

...comments always welcome at the Madville Times!
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Bike Path Not Pipeline: Where I Don't Stand on Eminent Domain

Sibby cuts to to the heart of an issue that I've been grappling with myself on the proposed Lake Herman bike trail:

During the TransCanada pipeline issue, you took what I thought was a pro-property rights position. But now it is obvious that you are not for property rights. So your TransCanada position must have been based soley on your radical environmental ideological worldview [Steve Sibson, comment, Madville Times, 2009.10.25].

Steve isn't the only Sibson whom I expected to brand me as an ideological traitor, and I've been mighty nervous about that very prospect. I have been very vocal in my opposition to the use of eminent domain and my defense of personal property rights for everyone from the farmers and ranchers along the Keystone pipeline and DM&E rail routes to Madison's own Dick Wiedenman. Yet I have characterized farmer David Pitts's language in defense of his property rights against encroachment by a bike trail as "selfish, inconsistent, and at least unneighborly if not insulting."

Sibby and Jason Bjorklund both rightly ask, What gives?

Review the record: at no point have I said I support taking David Pitts's land or anyone else's by eminent domain for the proposed bike trail. I've said previously that I oppose using eminent domain to build a bike trail. When I heard folks talking about the prospect of resorting to eminent domain for this project, my heart sank.

But let's get clear on one thing: TransCanada's use of eminent domain to build the Keystone pipeline is very different from the potential use of eminent domain to build the bike trail to Lake Herman.

The TransCanada land grab transferred land rights from various private parties to another private party. Eminent domain for this bike trail would transfer private land rights to the general public.
TransCanada took land under the flimsy claim that its pipeline is a "common carrier," a notion I find laughable, since TransCanada is the only party making direct use of the pipeline. The Lake Herman bike trail would be open to use by all residents and visitors alike.
TransCanada's Keystone pipeline provides no direct benefit to any landowner whose land has been taken for the pipeline easement or to any adjoining community. A much stronger case can be made that the bike trail provides direct benefits to the community: increased tourism, increased sales tax revenue, more recreational activities, and safer bike and pedestrain travel in town and to and from Lake Herman State Park (and I'm not even working hard to think up those advantages). Even the landowner stands to benefit—I will posit that direct access to a bike trail increases the sale value of the land for residential and commercial development. (Real estate agents, feel free to chime in with your perspective!)

It is also important to note that we aren't even at the eminent domain stage yet. David Pitts sure makes it sound like he won't sell, no way, no how... but his position may be nothing more than hardball negotiation to squeeze from the city every penny he can get. I have no problem with driving a hard bargain to get the best market price possible, and from the sounds of it, the city will likely offer a price significantly better than market value to make this project happen.

As I said to Jason, I don't stand to benefit much personally from the bike trail. The shortest route for me to ride to town will still be Highway 34... and contrary to Mr. Pitts's opinion that I have all the time in the world, when it's 0°F, I want my ride to be as quick as possible.

I don't need a bike trail. I don't need David Pitts's land to get to class or the park or anywhere else I ride.

However, I can look beyond myself. I can recognize that a lot of casual cyclists don't feel comfortable going pedal-to-gas-pedal with texting teen drivers and rumbling semis. I can recognize that plenty of campers feel a bit uneasy taking their kids on a bike ride to town on a county road with no shoulder. And I can recognize that bicycle tourists won't make an extra trip to Madison just ride on the shoulder of a highway.

I hope Mr. Pitts will look at both his self-interest and the public interest and realize that expanding the right-of-way easement on his land can serve both. He can make a guaranteed pot of money up front and still sell his land for development, quite possibly at a better price. He can also pave the way for increased recreational opportunities and tourism that will benefit everyone in the county. The Lake Herman bike trail is a win-win situation. We shouldn't need eminent domain to make it happen.

But if Mr. Pitts can't see that, if he fails to see how he himself comes out ahead on this deal, the city will have to make a very clear and evidenced case that the public benefits of the bike trail outweigh the personal property rights of Mr. Pitts and the other landowners along the proposed route. I await the making of that case.

...comments and further pondering on pedaling and property welcome at the Madville Times!
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Socialism and Software? WhiteHouse.gov Adopts Drupal

Expect the wingnuts to start spinning conspiracy theories about how the swine flu "national emergency" declaration is the first step toward suspension of the Constitution and hauling Bob Ellis to the death camps. Bob Ellis is taking a blog break—code to his followers to buy up ammo and retreat to the mountain militia hideaways. My cousin Aaron is already fretting on Facebook about HHS Secretary Sebelius getting extraordinary powers. [Funny: we descend into tyranny under similar emergency declarations to respond to Hurricane Katrina (2005), Hurricanes Ike and Gustav (2008), and North Dakota flooding (2009).]

If you wingnuts want real evidence that the White House is building Marxist tyranny, check out (hat tip to Deane at Gadgetopia!) the White House's latest software decision: the Obama Administration is abandoning proprietary content management software in favor of Drupal. Drupal is open-source software: it is built not by a single corporation or entrepreneur but by thousands of people around the world, collaborating online, working not for any direct monetary gain but for the general good of society. Individuals and teams of programmers build and improve the software and post their code online, where anyone can download it, use it, tinker with it, and make it better.

Cooperation, no profit, social good, open to everyone... aaahhh! Socialism!!!

Actually, open-source software can be viewed through a safely capitalist lens. The White House is working with plenty of for-profit firms to make this software switch. They can use this open-source software to provide better service for a cheaper price (every capitalist I know likes that formula).

The White House's move to open-source software is also a perfectly logical outgrowth of the Web philosophy and political philosophy the Obama campaign made manifest last year. Adopting Drupal for WhiteHoue.gov embodies in tech the same participatory values embodied in President Obama's approach to government:

...[B]y being open source, the White House is opening itself up to all the bright ideas, powerful plug-ins, and innovative tools that the considerable community of Drupal aficionados come up with. It's a community that the White House says it is eager to tap into. "Open source is a great form of civic participation," the White House's Phillips told me this afternoon. "We're looking forward to getting the benefit of their energy and innovation" [Nancy Scola, “WhiteHouse.gov Goes Drupal,” Personal Democracy Forum, 2009.10.24].

Drupal creator Dries Buytaert (whose company Acquia has helped the White House jump to Drupal) naturally says similar things about the civic sense and business case for Drupal in government:

First of all, I think Drupal is a perfect match for President Barack Obama's push for an open and transparent government -- Drupal provides a great mix of traditional web content management features and social features that enable open communication and participation. This combination is what we refer to as social publishing and is why so many people use Drupal. Furthermore, I think Drupal is a great fit in terms of President Barack Obama's desire to reduce cost and to act quickly. Drupal's flexibility and modularity enables organizations to build sites quickly at lower cost than most other systems. In other words, Drupal is a great match for the U.S. government.

Second, this is a clear sign that governments realize that Open Source does not pose additional risks compared to proprietary software, and furthermore, that by moving away from proprietary software, they are not being locked into a particular technology, and that they can benefit from the innovation that is the result of thousands of developers collaborating on Drupal. It takes time to understand these things and to bring this change, so I congratulate the Obama administration for taking such an important leadership role in considering Open Source solutions [Dries Buytaert, "WhiteHouse.gov Using Drupal," personal blog, 2009.10.25].

p.s.: I dig Drupal. I use it for RealMadison.org, the Lake Herman Sanitary District, and my online dissertation. If I like, it must be socialist, right? ;-)

...comments and raging debates over content management software welcome at the Madville Times!
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Wasson Says Give Black Hills Back; Hickey Supports U.S. Apology to Tribes

By turning a South Dakota spotlight toward Aaron Huey's disturbing photo essay and commentary on our Pine Ridge Reservation, Dr. David Newquist generated some valuable conversation about one of the biggest and most ignored problems in South Dakota. (His post also provoked some predictable hot air.)

Among some of the noteworthy comments elicited:

U.S. House candidate Thad Wasson wins the award for gutsiest politician in South Dakota by declaring he supports returning land to the Sioux Nations. Not just a few more scraps of land in or around existing reservation boundaries, but prime turf like the Black Hills. "[T]he reason no politician wants to address this is greed," says Wasson. The man from Piedmont (yes, Wasson lives in the territory he would consider giving back) may have guaranteed himself expulsion from the South Dakota GOP, but he has proven he can shake up any political discussion.

Pastor Steve Hickey, who is to me as ACESA is to John Thune (i.e., something I fight with every fiber of my being), points to some good things happening in Indian country. He also celebrates—yes, celebrates—the formal apology to American Indians Congress has passed. "I'm sorry" may not seem like much after five centuries of cultural decimation, but Pastor Hickey says the apology "will have spiritual implications that few realize." Pastor Hickey never ceases to surprise me... sometimes in a good way.

Dr. Newquist himself follows up with more commentary. The Brown County Democrat supports the Pennington County Republican's call to give back the land.

...continued conversation welcome throughout the blogosphere and at the Madville Times!
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UPDATED: President Obama and Senator Thune Opposed Franken Amendment

No problem, Sibby... let's see how this works:

President Barack Hussein Obama is as guilty as Senator John Thune of opposing expanded legal protection for employees of defense contractors who experience sexual assault and other abuse in the workplace. . The Pentagon supported the position of 30 Republican Senators in opposing the Franken amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would deny federal contracts to companies that try forcing employees to sign contracts surrendering their legal right to take their employer to court for workplace abuse like the gang rape and imprisonment Jamie Leigh Jones says she experienced at the hands of her Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad in 2005.

The Department of Defense gave this reason for opposing the amendment:

“The Department of Defense, the prime contractor, and higher tier subcontractors may not be in a position to know about such things. Enforcement would be problematic, especially in cases where privity of contract does not exist between parties within the supply chain that supports a contract,” reads the DoD note. “It may be more effective to seek a statutory prohibition of all such arrangements in any business transaction entered into within the jurisdiction of the United States, if these arrangements are deemed to pose an unacceptable method of recourse” [Araminta Wordsworth, "Thirty Senators and the Jamie Leigh Jones Rape Case," National Post, 2009.10.21]

Now I might split hairs a little, noting that DoD's reasoning is different from that of Senator Thune and his free-market fundamentalist colleagues. The Obama Administration dances in technicalities but then grants that it might be better to ban forced arbitration in all contracts—that's an idea worth considering!

Senator Thune, however, frets over removing arbitration as a "tool available for labor and management to use when it comes to labor agreements..." except, of course, when labor might benefit from using that tool. As Think Progress points out, Thune's excuse on his Franken Amendment vote is all hypocrisy:

While Thune is committed to the principle that corporations have the right to use binding arbitration to muzzle victims of rape, he has long argued against the use of arbitrators in regards to reforming how unions sign labor contracts. In fact, Thune has fashioned himself a chief opponent of the Employee Free Choice Act simply because of arbitration. Arbitration is a part of EFCA because, all too often, when employees vote to form a union, they still can’t get a first contract due to their employer’s delay tactics. However, Thune has argued that the most “egregious” provision of EFCA is arbitration. Arbitration to help unions form contracts with their employers, Thune argues, would “kill jobs” and hurt “every American business, both large and small” [Lee Fang, "Thune Offers Weak And Hypocritical Argument For Voting Against Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment," Think Progress, 2009.10.21].

President Obama deserves serious criticism for letting his Defense Department take the wrong side on the issue of federal defense contractors, arbitration, and protecting women. So does Senator Thune.

...comments welcome at the Madville Times!

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EDITED: SF Media Gives Thune Free Pass on Franken Amendment Vote

At 13:48 CDT today, I received the following request from KELO-TV:

Cory,

We’d like you to adjust the title of this blog entry: [URL] along with any other instances of this wording within the blog post.

Thanks,

Jonathan García
Web Producer
KELOLAND.com

O.K. See revisions below, in bold:

Travis at Badlands Blue makes a good point: why is the South Dakota media giving Senator John Thune a pass on his vote against the Franken amendment, a nay vote which some have characterized as a vote that protects malfeasant government defense contractors and makes it harder for women to seek legal recourse for abuse in the workplace. Senator Franken's amendment ot the defense appropriations bill sought to withhold defense contracts from companies "if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." When Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones alleged that she was gang raped by coworkers at Halliburton and then locked in a storage container for 24 hours without food, water, or a bed and threatened, Halliburton/KBR tried to force her into binding arbitration instead of being able to take the case to court.

Angie at Dakota Women opened the story for discussion in the South Dakota blogosphere two weeks ago, even beating Jon Stewart to the punch. Yet as far as I know, only one professional reporter in this state has seen fit to ask our Senator why he would vote against Senator Franken's amendment to prohibit federal money from going toward defense contractors who force their employees to give up their civil rights.

(Reminder of the Jon Stewart position: we'll bust ACORN for giving bad advice to a fake pimp, but we keep pumping millions of federal dollars to corporations whose employees commit offenses like those committed by Halliburton/KBR employees in Baghdad, offenses that have been widely referred to in the press as allegedly including gang rape?)

That one bright, shining exception: Kevin Woster (of course!) does good journalism and takes up the issue in a Sunday report in the Rapid City Journal discussing possible Dem challengers to Thune in 2010. (If you've read others, do let me know!)

But Thune's hometown rag, that Sioux Falls paper? Nothing. The Sioux Falls TV "news"? Nope, zip, nada.

Senator Thune puts the profits of Halliburton and other Republican money machines over the protection of women and the prosecution of actual offenses like those committed by Halliburton/KBR employees in Baghdad, offenses that have been widely referred to in the press as allegedly including gang rape, and no one making money for reporting news—at least no one on this side of the river—thinks it might be worth asking the Senator to clarify his position?

As Travis notes, so much for the "Liberal Media." If you want liberal media in South Dakota, you have to do it yourself.

...comments and further suggestions for revision welcome at the Madville Times...

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Veblen Dairy Group Not Paying Bills; Stiffed Farmers Speak Up

Things keep getting worse for Rick Millner of Veblen and his Dairy Dozen factory feedlot operations. Millner is not only violating federal law; he's also bilking the farmers he does business with. According to a report in AgWeek, since last year, Millner's business has regularly failed to fully pay for livestock feed contracted from farmers around the Five Star Dairy in Milnor, North Dakota. One farmer is selling off equipment to pay the bills that he can't otherwise pay while Dairy Dozen dodges its obligations to him.

“I’m tired of being Five Star’s banker,” says Dan Mund.... As of Oct. 6, Mund says he is owed $80,000 for his 2008 corn crop by Five Star Dairy of Milnor, N.D. Five Star is a 1,600-cow operation that is part of a stable of five larger dairies.

“I just want to be paid and then be left alone,” he says [Mikkel Pates, "Supplier-Farmers Stung by Dairy's Economic Woes," AgWeek, 2009.10.19].

Mund has done business with the nieghboring feedlot since 1997. When Millner bought and expanded the operation in 2006, he told Mund, "I’m the kind of guy you don’t need a contract with... A handshake is good enough.”

Now not even a court order is good enough: a district judge ordered Millner to pay Mund in full back in March; Mund is still waiting for his $80,000.

Millner's feedlots are the sort of business for which our state government does all sorts of favors, including helping rich foreigners jump the immigration queue. Millner's business takes all this state assistance, then fails to pay its bills and leaves its smaller business partners holding the bag.

Millner has proven once again that he just can't operate as a good neighbor. More farmers need to speak up against his abuse of contracts and environmental laws, and our government officials need to take more action to stop these abuses and compensate the folks who have suffered from Millner's anti-social business practices.

...comments welcome at the Madville Times...
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Remember Tony Dean: Act on Climate Change

Badlands Blue provides an appropriate reminder that Tony Dean, South Dakota's sportsman sans pareil, believed climate change was no myth:

Here’s a quote in the book from Tony about how global warming has been affecting waterfowl: “I’ve been hunting the Missouri River for 40 years, and I could always count on birds’ being here by the first week in November. But the migration has been getting later and later. Last year we saw more ducks in the closing days of the season than we’d seen at any other time in the year. Global warming isn’t some kind of nerdy abstraction; it’s what I deal with every time I throw out my decoys.”

It's not just us hippies; even a man who made his living with shotgun and fishing rod knew that we have to take care of the planet. Whether you shoot ducks with camera or 12-gauge, you should support climate-change legislation.

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Related: The National Academy of Scientists calculates that burning fossils fuels costs the United States (just our country!) $120 billion each year in health costs. That includes thousands of premature deaths from air pollution... assuming you're o.k. with putting a dollar value on individual lives.

And some of your want to use even more coal and oil?

...comments welcome at the Madville Times...
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Public Option That Still Works: Rural Electric Cooperatives

Hat tip to Rebecca Blood, who points us toward a pointed essay by freelance writer Bob Simmons from Bellingham, Washington, on the public option... for electricity:

Electrical service had not yet penetrated the hills of rural Southern Iowa. Everyone wanted it, Hell yes. We yearned for it. The investor-owned power company wouldn't sell it to us. Analogous to millions who today can't get health care insurance (another thing we did without) we were disqualified by pre-existing conditions: We were farmers and we were poor. We might not use enough power. We might not pay our bills [Bob Simmons, "How FDR Enacted His 'Public Option '," Crosscut.com, 2009.09.08].

So in came the rural electric cooperatives, a result not of slow, deliberate Congressional bipartisanship, but of a unilateral executive order by a determined President who said of conservative animosity to the evils of government action, essentially, Bring it on!

And omigawd were they [the rural electric cooperatives] evil. Socialistic, un-American, undermining the very fabric of democracy. Legislators, businessmen, members of Congress, editorial page editors all over the country railed at the specter of Big Government shouldering into private enterprise, when everyone knew Government couldn't do it right.

Most infuriating of all, government did it right. The cooperatives became the pricing yardstick for electrical power. Investor-owned utilities had to lower their rates to compete. In four years, the cost of installing a mile of rural power line dropped from $2,000 to $600. In 2007, 72 years after FDR created the public option, customers using public power nationwide reportedly paid 17 percent less than those served by privately-owned utilities (according to the American Public Power Association, not necessarily a neutral source) [Simmons, 2009].

Anyone else see a connection between rural electrification and universal health coverage? And might President Obama take a lesson from FDR in how to get the job done?

...comments and other acknowledgments of reality always welcome at the Madville Times!
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Road Tax Hike: Political Potholes & High Road of Statesmanship

An interesting bit of bipartisanship took place this past week here in South Dakota. Five Republicans and six Democrats on the Legislature's interim highway committee proposed bringing significant increases in vehicle registration fees and the state gas tax up for debate in the 2010 session. This isn't some token Snowe job of one meaningless vote; after a summer of conversation (on top of a much longer history of the majority party putting off hard decisions under the guise of study and task forces), a genuine bipartisan majority of this committee decided South Dakota's transportation infrastructure is in such bad shape that we need to have a serious conversation about paying our way to pave our ways.

Consider the diverse voices backing this proposal:

Republican committee chair Rep. Shantel Krebs (10-Renner) is vice chair of the state GOP. She's at the heart of the party that depends on South Dakota's "no-tax/low-tax" mantra to win keep power. Yet she is willing to be called a fool by members of her own party and support raising the road fees.
Democratic Representative Gerald Lange (8-Madison) is a classic Catholic social activist, perhaps the noirest bête of South Dakota politics. He has consistently opposed regressive taxes like our tax on food as harmful to the poor and bad fiscal policy. Yet he is willing to compromise and support somewhat regressive road use taxes to prevent the collapse of our infrastructure.

In other grand expression of bipartisanship, all four Republicans and the lead Democrat running for governor in 2010 have come out against the increase. Where the bipartisan majority on the committee is motivated by the pressing need to shovel some asphalt, the group of gubernatorial candidates is motivated by the pressing need to keep shoveling a certain bovine substance.

Let me take issue most directly with the position taken by candidate who will probably get my vote next November, Senate Minority Leader Scott Heidepriem (13-Sioux Falls):

Democratic candidate for governor Scott Heidepriem says state government needs to improve efficiency, not raise taxes, to pay for future road and bridge projects.

Heidepriem says $183 million in federal stimulus money should be enough for the state to meet its highway needs for now.

"I don't believe that an increase in taxation on the backs of people of South Dakota at this difficult time in history is appropriate given we already have received this amount from the federal government," Heidepriem said [Perry Groten, "Governor Candidates React to Proposed Tax Hike," KELOLand.com, 2009.10.15].

The point about the federal money available is well taken. Some commentators continue to use "rely[ing] on the federal government" as an empty talking point, but Heidepriem's position could be the most realistic one expressed: South Dakota is all about federal pork. South Dakota voters, especially the Republicans, love keeping our taxes low and relying on Uncle Sam to build our roads.

But the highway committee already factored those stimulus dollars into their deliberations. $85 million has already been awarded in 14 contracts. $5.5 million has to go toward enhancement projects (like the Lake Herman Loop bike path?!? Hey! Over here!). The remaining $92.5M needs to be dealt out by next March. The stimulus thus doesn't cover whatever road projects are on tap for 2011... which is what road fee hikes passed in the 2010 Legislature would kick in to cover.

Heidepriem also runs the efficiency argument. Sure, we can find some extra executive indulgences like state planes and no-bid contracts. But just a thought: does South Dakota want total efficiency? Total efficiency would mean consolidating all drivers license stations to Sioux Falls, Aberdeen, and Rapid City. Total efficiency would mean no school districts with enrollment under 1000 (2000? 5000?). Total efficiency would mean shutting down courthouses and consolidating all services into seven mega-counties along the circuit court boundaries.

My principal and former boss Dennis Germann once told me there's a difference between doing things efficiently and doing things effectively. (I think he was talking about the fact that I never sat down for coffee with other teachers.) I would suggest there comes a point where the pursuit of efficiency becomes the quest for a perpetual motion machine.

Now I understand there are political arguments behind all this. Facing an uphill battle in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic governor since the 1970s, Heidepriem can't afford to give the eventual GOP nominee any easy attack line on taxes. And Heidepriem could be concerned that Rep. Krebs and the other Republicans who are willing to stick their necks out for responsible fiscal policy now, after a summer of pleasant conversations out of the media spotlight, will cut and run during the session and the 2010 campaign, hoping the voters will forget this bipartisan vote (forget this vote? not with this blog around). Draw Dems out into a compromise on a vital issue, then bail on them to score political points: the national GOP has played that strategy on health care; what's to stop the state GOP from playing the same games with our roads?

Maybe the words of Rep. Mike Vehle (20-Mitchell), who opened discussion at Wednesday's committee meeting thus:

Everyone in this committee.. has a feeling that we need to do something... We'd all like to do probably a lot more than we feel in a recession we can do. But we need to take a hard look and be ready to explain to our colleagues the need that our highways have.... [A]ny society that lets its infrastructure fail or start to fail is also going down a wrong road and putting our society in jeopardy [Senator Mike Vehle, 2009.10.14].

The proposed vehicle registration fee and gas tax hikes don't have to be about politics. The proposals can be and should be about solving a problem and protecting a vital state resource. Let us hope the statesmanlike bipartisanship demonstrated this week by Krebs, Lange, Vehle, Merchant, and seven others will prevail over political potholes.

...comments welcome at the Madville Times!

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Bookmark this page for 2010 (or bookmark Pat's—we'll both keep track): here's a recap of who voted how on this particular measure on Wednesday:

Name	Vote	Chamber	Party
Ahlers, Dan	Aye	Senate	Democrat
Cronin, Justin	Nay	House	Republican
Elliott, Elaine	Aye	House	Democrat
Fryslie, Art	Aye	Senate	Republican
Juhnke, Kent	Nay	House	Republican
Knudson, Dave	Nay	Senate	Republican
Krebs, Shantel	Aye	House	Republican
Lange, Gerald	Aye	House	Democrat
Lucas, Larry	Aye	House	Democrat
McLaughlin, Ed	Aye	House	Republican
Merchant, Pam	Aye	Senate	Democrat
Putnam, J.E. "Jim"	Aye	House	Republican
Steele, Manny	Nay	House	Republican
Street, Steve	Aye	House	Democrat
Vanneman, Kim	Nay	House	Republican
Vehle, Mike	Aye	Senate	Republican
Verchio, Mike	Nay	House	Republican

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Enjoy Hobo Day Bike Ride with Dr. Chicoine... and 1000 More Pedal Pushers

South Dakota State University President Dr. David Chicoine may have sold his soul and my land-grant alma mater to the ag-industrial complex... but if I were the Green Pope, I might sell him an indulgence for this:

Save the day? Heck, save the planet! Robb Rasmussen of Sioux River Bicycles and Fitness is hoping to get one thousand cyclists together to ride in the Hobo Day Parade on Saturday, October 24. One thousand cyclists! In one place! In South Dakota!

I know some naysayer out there will grouse that Robb is just trying to make money off the environmental movement. Fine. I hope promoting green energy and green lifestyles will make Robb a millionaire. Twice over. With customers who live longer because they are riding bikes instead of sitting in their SUVs.

Hobo Day, Saturday, October 24—1000 bicycles! Make it happen!

Now, if we can just get Dr. Chicoine to bring goodies for everyone in that big basket. Maybe some organic sweet corn? ;-)

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p.s.: More Brookings bike love: SDSU Students' Association is working on a campus bike-sharing plan. Pedals for the people!

...parade your social statements at the Madville Times!

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