Rep. Hickey Resigns; Governor Invites Public Input

PIERRE, S.D. – State Rep. Steve Hickey has resigned his seat in the South Dakota House of Representatives. Hickey, a Sioux Falls Republican, has served in the state House since 2011.

“Steve Hickey has been a passionate advocate for his constituents and for the causes he believes in,” said Gov. Daugaard. “I wish him the best in the future.”

Hickey’s resignation, which is effective Sept. 1, 2015, creates a vacancy that will be filled by gubernatorial appointment. The Governor is asking the public to nominate candidates to fill the position.

Those wishing to be considered for the appointment, or to offer nominations, should contact Grace Kessler in the Office of the Governor at 605-773-3661. Nominations should include the candidate’s name, current address, telephone number and relevant background information.

Hickey represents District 9, which includes northwestern Minnehaha County, including the Hartford, Humboldt, Crooks and the Wall Lake area. The district also includes an area in north and northwestern Sioux Falls, encompassing Southeast Technical Institute, Hayward Elementary School and the Sioux Falls Regional Airport. A map of the district is available on the LRC website at legis.sd.gov/img/Legislative_Districts/09.pdf.

Gov. Daugaard expects to name an appointee this fall.

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There’s a report out today on Bob Mercer’s web site that State Representative Steve Hickey is resigning.   Apparently I got it last night, but I go to bed too early.

House Caucus,

Effective September 1, Representative Hickey is resigning from the Legislature due to his desire to pursue an education opportunity in Scottland (UK) and for health reasons. His explanation will follow:

For a combination of reasons briefly mentioned here, I am resigning my position as State Representative, District 9, effective September 1, 2015. On Sunday, I announced my plans to our church and wanted you to hear it from me personally as soon as possible.

More significant to our family and close friends, after twenty one years, I’m shifting into a Pastor Emeritus-type role at our church here in Sioux Falls. Kristen and I are selling our home in District 9. Beginning September 7 we will be living most of the time near the University of Aberdeen in Scotland as I work toward a PhD in Christian Ethics in the Modern World, or more precisely, the topic of Bonhoeffer and the Surveillance State.

My interest and involvement in Bonhoeffer studies goes back twenty-five years when I studied for a couple years under a leading Bonhoeffer scholar and this is an opportunity extended to very few. For years I’ve been a member of the International Bonhoeffer Society and through my involvement there, in March of 2014, I was encouraged to apply for a scholarship at the University of Aberdeen. Though I did not get that scholarship, the door opened and those who know what it takes to get into a PhD program are aware this isn’t something I’m doing on a whim.

Considering the path I am on toward a lung transplant this window of time to slow down and prepare for the next chapter of our lives makes lots of sense to us. My long-term plan is to teach and write and it is our intention to finish out our lives in South Dakota upon completion of my PhD. My son plans to return to South Dakota when he finishes seminary next spring and my daughters plan is to begin law school at USD in 2016. South Dakota will remain our home long-term and I plan to continue to follow and be involved in South Dakota politics and issues even in my physical absence.

My kids would be quick to tell you one of our family values is “Hickeys cross finish lines.” However the timing of the academic opportunities available to me require that I not finish my third term in the State House. My hope is those in my district understand there are vocational, personal and health reasons preventing a citizen legislator from completing a term. In any case, it has been a high honor to serve people from every political persuasion in my district and the rest of our state and thank them for the trust they have placed in me.

Sincerely,  Rep. Steve Hickey

Please wish Representative Hickey well as he continues his pulmonary battle & this education opportunity.

Thanks,  Leader Gosch

 

Apparently Democratic Mayor Mike Huether is taking his 2018 Campaign for Governor out of Sioux Falls and dragging it to Brookings… So we need his ‘wisdom’ in person because a tributary of the Big Sioux runs through here?

Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether is taking his annual Big Sioux River Water Summit upstream.

For the past two years, Huether has brought together business and civic leaders, conservationists, environmentalists and members of the agriculture community to discuss improving the quality of water that flows in the Big Sioux. In hopes of diversifying the audience and broadening engagement, Huether plans to hold the third annual water summit in Brookings.

Read it here.

If we parse “In hopes of diversifying the audience and broadening engagement,” I’m guessing his true purpose for “diversification” is to campaign in front of more people outside of Sioux Falls on the City of Sioux Falls’ dime.

I’m sure you all know I don’t spend all of my day in front of the computer. And today was no different.

I had some office duties required of me today, so I was in there working for a bit this AM. I helped my wife take ice and soda down to a crew assembling playground equipment at the new elementary school, and then took her to lunch. And I had a project that’s been in the back of my mind.

Friends on Facebook know I’ve had a head of steam behind me this summer for home improvement projects. I’ve built a few furniture projects (Bed, 2 tables), “upcycled” pallets into projects, installed a sink, and done several other minor little things to keep my hands busy with things other than the computer. I do plenty of that computer stuff, arguably more than my fair share, and I’ll be doing plenty more in the coming months as the weather turns and the political season heats up.  However, there is a big world outside of cyberspace, and it’s great project weather. So I step away from time to time.

For years, I’ve been wanting to do a little expansion on my deck, which I’ve been putting off due to cost.  I have “off-year projects” which I do as time and funds allow. And I have “election year” projects which I pay people to do while I’m crazy busy with political postcards and the like.

The deck project has been languishing for a few years now, and was looking like it might be relegated to being an “election year” project sometime next year, if I managed to find the time right behind the re-shingling of my roof.  Given my aversion to heights, the roof project is a strong priority for having someone else do it.  And the deck would follow far behind it.

Yet today, I happened on to a bit of good fortune.  I stumbled across someone who has a large pile of lumber salvaged from the South Dakota State University Stadium bleachers.

The 2″ by 10″ lumber was a bit stouter than the 2″ by 6″ lumber I was looking for. And they’re 17-18 foot lengths. And it’s all painted. But….

What the “but” was, was a very low price. And unlike next summer, I have the time to do it myself this year.  And suddenly, I’ve got a big project for next year that was conveniently promoted to this years’ big “off-year project.”

I have to admit, I’m a little intrigued to use lumber that came out of the stadium of my Alma Mater in the construction.  There were a lot of memories in that stadium over my years of schooling, whether I was freezing my butt off as a University Police Student Officer, or in the stands sitting on those bleachers cheering on the Jacks.

Yes, that brand new massive stadium of steel under construction across town is going to be nice. But they’re not the only builders in town.

By the time football season rolls around, the University is scheduled to have it’s newly constructed monolith to the game. And I will as well, and likely not be able to help from smiling over the memories that I’ll have tucked away under my feet.

And here’s one of them:

From KELOLAND:

A Minnesota volunteer firefighter says he’s been suspended for flying a confederate flag from an engine during a holiday parade, and that he expects to be asked to resign.

and..

Neilsen says he flew the flag because he’s fed up with political correctness and didn’t realize how much trouble it would cause.

Read it here.

Well, that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, given it was his employer’s truck and not his to stage his protest against political correctness. And I don’t recall that Albert Lea Minnesota has ever been noted as a hotbed of confederate support. But I suspect it’s less that the man wanted to express a rebel yell, followed with a “don’t-cha-know” as much as make a statement against what seems to be an overreaching sense of hyper-sensitivity that infects our nation at this point in our history.

Ever since the media latched on to an image of a man who tragically killed several black church goers posing with a confederate flag, the flag has become a lightning rod and a symbol for racism in our society, and it’s instantly being erased in every context imaginable. It’s probably not the only time someone of ill-repute has posed with it, but for some reason, banning it has become the de facto response to prove one’s self as not being racist.

150 years after the war, should it be flown over statehouses? I’d argue no. It really doesn’t have a place among our state or national symbols. But, as a nation, the fact remains it was part of our history, and we should be able to display it in that context. Ever since the civil war, it has also been a symbol of rebellion and nonconformity. Some would say it’s display is more of a statement of “Don’t tread on me” as opposed to “we need to secede again.”

But in our society where we’ve now made up the term “Microagressions,” and include notations of America as the land of opportunity as a microagression, the banning of the flag has quickly moved to full blown hysteria.  I think the flag banning movement showed it’s extremes when the Apple Store went so far as to ban the confederate flag in games about the civil war:

“We have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines,” a spokesperson said to BuzzFeed News. The company denied issuing a blanket ban however, stating that the flag can be shown for “educational or historical uses.”

The decision has, however, forced a number of American Civil War games off of the App Store, even though developers insist the Confederate flag was only used to be historically accurate.

Sources told BuzzFeed that Apple is working with affected game developers to get their apps back in the App Store. The company is reportedly asking them to remove or replace the offending flag, however.

Read that here.

So, how exactly does one re-enact the civil war without the confederate flag? And how exactly does banning the flag in that context make any headway in bridging the racial divide in this country?

Are we that far gone that we now have to call one side the shirts and the other side the skins? I’m not sure how they’re going to digitally replace the flag on top of the Dukes of Hazzard car to render the show airable again, but when you see things like that, I can maybe even sympathize a little with the firefighter in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

It doesn’t seem ‘Minnesota’s Confederate Flag guy’ was endorsing a symbol he thought racist. It seems he was protesting a society deep in the grip of a hysteria to ban ideas and symbols, as opposed to solving real problems.

For better or worse, the confederate flag is part of our history as a nation. If we as a society have people pressing to ban the use of a flag even in historical contexts, that should trouble us far more than whether it’s plastered on the top of a car in a TV show, or it’s used to represent the rebels in a civil war re-enactment video game.

And it does nothing to solve the root problems of racism in this country. That’s where the real focus should be.

  If you can’t keep your political party’s web site up, that’s not a positive sign of your party’s financial and organizational health.