November 30, 2015 A Voice from the Gallery

November 30, 2015

There is an error in the minutes of the November 5, 2015, regular Alcester City Council meeting. In paragraph three of the published unofficial minutes, “Mayor Tom Glas presented the Mayor’s response: This is a response to the…On page 5 paragraph 2 (of the complaint answer rebuttal), it states that I gave Mrs. Larsen a tap on the head. Not true…”

Mayor Glas and Alcester City Council members, I wrote on page 5 of my Complaint Answer Rebuttal that, “…During my discussion of the complaint, Mayor Glas remarked, ‘…Police Chief Ryan Knutson has been instructed to follow the law…’ which in effect was an insulting pat on my head and run along dismissal…” I expect a correction of the record and an retraction in the paper.

Mayor Glas’ remarks that Police Chief Ryan Knutson had been instructed to follow the law was a blatant non-answer meant to be accepted blindly. In 1897 Virginia O’Hanlon was told by her father, “if you see it in The Sun it must be so” which prompted her letter to The Sun. The proverbial pat-on-the-head and a wink was a favorite ruse of ad-men in the forties and fifties to convince the little woman or house wives to buy their products. Children and women were given the proverbial as well as actual condescending, patronizing pats-on-the-head by husbands and fathers to silence uncomfortable questions.

Mayor Glas you charge that I alleged you gave me a ‘tap-on-the head’, I did not and I can prove it. Retract your statement, sir. Mayor Glas, you mentioned a phantom figure of $1120.84, I would like a detailed break-down of how you arrived at your figure. Mayor Glas you stated the bar generates $1200.00 per month, so where are the maintenance costs per month? Mayor Glas, what are the legal fees for generating the lease and operating agreement? Mayor Glas, you forgot the property tax revenue the city loses on the bar building property. You seem to conveniently forget debits against the credits for the bar. Mayor Glas you attribute “many tax dollars” to the Alcester bar. As I understand it, South Dakota does not give a breakdown for individual sales tax collected by individual entities within municipalities, so just how can you make the statement, “many tax dollars”?

The purpose in my complaint was to bring to light and prompt an investigation of illegal activities and violations of the rental agreement as admitted by Theresa Deem in open council meeting in front of the Alcester City Council.