1/10/18

South Dakota Supreme Court hears appeal that pits Rapid City against Daugaard donors

Future fund recipients, Kathryn Johnson, a former member of the Board of Regents implicated in the EB-5/Bendagate scandal, and her husband, prominent Rapid City attorney, Doyle Estes, each gave South Dakota's current governor $4000 in 2014.
The City of Rapid City's battle with Big Sky, LLC went before the South Dakota Supreme Court Tuesday morning. The city and Big Sky have been in court for years over the roads in the Big Sky Subdivision east of Elk Vale Road. The city's appeal to the State Supreme Court stems from a jury verdict in February of last year over the city's quest for damages that went in favor of Big Sky. The city is appealing the verdict on eight issues, including whether Big Sky and developer Doyle Estes were liable to the City of Rapid City as a matter of law.
Read more here.

Board of Regents and US Department of Education funding drove corruption in the GEAR UP scandal and Westerhuis murders. Recall Mike Rounds ran for Senate calling for the abolition of the US Department of Education knowing it is a source of corrupting influence in South Dakota.

South Dakota is plagued with conflicts of interest and the Future Fund is part of Pierre's culture of corruption.

The program is funded by a contractor’s excise tax that spent more than eleven million dollars last year on Governor Denny Daugaard's pet Republican projects.

Pam Roberts gave a thousand simoleons to Dennis Daugaard during the 2014 election cycle so in turn she got cash from the Future Fund and was appointed to the scandal-plagued Board of Regents.
Roberts currently is chairwoman of the South Dakota Republican Party. She retired as state secretary of labor in the Daugaard cabinet two years ago. Among her previous roles in state government, she was chief of operations for then-Gov. Bill Janklow. She also served in Cabinet-level posts for the Mickelson, Walter Dale Miller and Rounds administrations. [Mitchell Daily Republic]
Gov. Daugaard gave out $26.5 million in Future Fund grants just during his first three years in office.

In 2013 Daugaard appointed disgraced former US Attorney Kevin Schieffer to the board. In a fit of partisan government overreach Schieffer upended local control by seizing a T-Rex fossil in 1992 from the Black Hills Institute of Geology. Like fellow Regent and Future Fund recipient Harvey Jewett, Schieffer has given Daugaard loads of cash and gave Denny Daugaard $4000 in 2014.

On advice of counsel Mike Rounds won't release the names of his Future Fund cronies because he's shielded by South Dakota's lack of ethics oversight.

Kinda makes me wanna puke.

Supreme Court Chief Justice David Gilbertson is South Dakota's ranking Democrat. He's scheduled to deliver his State of the Judiciary address this afternoon to the state's extremist legislature.

No comments: