Pierre flushing town after noxious session. Do I go for the obvious joke?

There must be a joke in this story somewhere.

State officials said Tuesday a Hughes County grand jury has indicted Pierre’s former longtime sewer works superintendent on 10 counts alleging he lied for more than a year in official reports about how well the city’s wastewater was treated before it was dumped into the Missouri River. [Pierre Capital Journal]

Still struggling to find a reason for people to fly into Pierre, the city's GOP mayor is calling for the town to be scrubbed down after the legislative session.

The next week and a half will bring a flurry of activity to Pierre-as part of this year’s Go Green and Clean Campaign. Pierre Mayor Laurie Gill officially started the 2015 campaign yesterday on Earth Day with an address before a group of students at Georgia Morse Middle School. After Wednesday’s talk before the middle school students, Gill said there is a lot of momentum with this year’s campaign, as several volunteers have committed to various clean-up and improvement projects. She said Pierre received a call recently from the National Cities of Service Organization which asked about the annual campaign and how the city can organize so many volunteers to help. [Dakota Radio Group]

Here is the audio of Senator Billie Sutton reflecting on the legislature as a guest on SDPB's Dakota Midday. He cites strong leadership from Sens. Bernie Hunhoff and Jason Frerichs as critical support for minority Democrats.

Senator Bernie Hunhoff of Yankton says it was a disappointing finish. The road funding bill was the last spending bill that passed. It will raise taxes and fees by about fifty million dollars for road improvements. Hunhoff says that bill turned into a mess. [WNAX]

Sutton laments the virtual single-party rule in Pierre where Republicans march legislation through to a tune orchestrated by the autocratic executive branch. He also cited GOP infighting between the senate and the house as a distraction from important work in a short session.

Hunhoff spoke with voters in Rapid City today:

"What we've got to do is keep building from the grass roots, finding good candidates at the local level, whether it's city commission, school board, county commission or legislature and keep building that farm team. We've got some really really fine young leaders around the state. A lot of them don't have a lot of name recognition right now. We've got a good farm team and we just need to wait for the cycle to move through. We've got a good farm team and we just need to wait for the cycle to move through. I'm confident that South Dakota, in general, is becoming more progressive." [KEVN]

That my home state has become a chemical toilet is just one more sign of red state collapse.