Outgoing SF councilwoman Theresa Stehly claiming a lot that doesn’t seem to be there.

The dust has nearly settled on a close Sioux Falls City Council race, and nothing left but a few ministerial items, including a likely recount that has enough daylight between the victor and the vanquished that – absent a grievous and previously undiscovered error – there’s no chance the result is going to change.

The successful candidate in the contest, Alex Jensen, has issued a press release thanking his supporters and his opponent in the contest, Theresa Stehly.

As for Theresa… well, let’s just say she seems to be handling it a bit differently:

For three days this past week, Stehly seems to have had a bit of an issue with the State GOP, posting the same thing over and over. What was their alleged crime triggering her to angrily invoke them in her post-loss pity party?

In the Sioux Falls City Election, the SDGOP put out a Sioux Falls Election circular discussing the major races taking place n the Sioux Falls area where the party now has their headquarters. And the unspeakable crime in Theresa’s mind that that they committed was that it published several paragraphs discussing the race that Stehly was involved in. In part:

Stehly’s entrance into the race was not immediate; she announced her re-election campaign several months after her opponent Alex Jensen made note of his interest in the race.

During her 2020 campaign for reelection, Stehly has claimed, “I will be running a positive, grassroots campaign, continuing my emphasis on citizen advocacy and focusing on the issues,” she said in a statement.”

and..

Councilor Stehly noted that “she continues to be focused on government transparency, accountability in city spending, strengthening the police force, supporting neighborhood safety and integrity, improving responsiveness to citizen concerns and maintaining municipal infrastructure.”

However, Stehly is known as being contentious when she is confronted about issues, as well as being entangled in controversy, such as incidents earlier this year where several newspaper stories ran about the councilwoman undertaking a robocall campaign against a prospective city department hire, and blocking people on social media. Some users said “they got the cold social media shoulder from Stehly because they don’t see eye-to-eye with her politically.”

Stehly’s conduct on the Sioux Falls City Council is well-documented, and has often been the subject of news stories and editorials in the Sioux Falls media, so it’s hard for Stehly to claim that anyone writing a story about her noting her positive points and things she’s campaigned on, along with a light treatment of some of her controversies is doing so in anger.

If anything, it skipped over quite a bit. While it noted recent controversies on her robocall campaign against a hiring, and her blocking of people on social media, you didn’t see any mention of her attacking a private citizen from the podium in January, and demanding the censorship of a news article. Didn’t mention her falsely accusing her colleagues of corruption. It doesn’t mention accusations of misinformation during the tornado, misinformation on sewer service, attacking a potential city hire for disagreeing with her on social media, pushing to expand video lottery, or attacking Kristi Noem over the President Trump Visit to Sioux Falls…  (And I know I’m missing a few things).

So there’s allegedly anger or hatred when the GOP sends out an election guide that notes on one hand that Theresa states she “will be running a positive, grassroots campaign,”  but on the other acknowledges that she’s “entangled in controversy?”  I don’t think so.  They’re all stories about her that are all pretty recent, and well documented.

If there’s any anger or hatred involved in the election, it seems to be the fact that Theresa is angry that people’s memories are not as short as she’d like them to be, and the article was attempting to be honest, without piling on.