Commissioner Scott Bollinger Announces Retirement
Governor Noem Merges Bureaus of Administration and Human Resources

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Scott Bollinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Administration (BOA), announced that he will be retiring in June of 2023. Governor Noem thanked Commissioner Bollinger for his years of service to the state and announced plans to merge the Bureau of Administration and the Bureau of Human Resources. Governor Noem also appointed Chas Olson as Interim Director of the South Dakota Housing Development Authority.

“Scott’s dedication to his work and to the people of South Dakota has left an impact on so many lives,” said Governor Noem. “He is an example of the wonderful opportunities that come from a career in state government. I thank Scott for his years of public service.”

With Bollinger’s retirement, Governor Noem announced the merger of the Bureaus of Human Resources and Administration. The combined bureaus will provide centralized services to state government agencies including fleet and travel, buildings and grounds, human resources, risk management, and others. Current BHR Commissioner Darin Seeley will lead the combined organization.

“This merger will streamline government processes for state employees and reduce bureaucratic overhead, making us more responsible with taxpayer dollars,” continued Governor Noem.

Commissioner Bollinger has served in state government for 40 years across a variety of positions in multiple agencies including the Department of Corrections and the Bureau of Finance and Management.

“I would like to thank Governor Noem for the opportunity to serve in her administration,” said Commissioner Bollinger. “I will miss working with BOA staff and other agency personnel. I wish them all the best in their futures.”

Scott looks forward to spending more time with his kids and six grandchildren. He also hopes to attend a Green Bay Packers football game at Lambeau Field.

Chas Olson has served as Director of Rental Housing at SDHDA since January 2021. Prior to that, he was a Housing Development Officer for SDHDA from 2014 to 2021. Chas holds an Associate’s in Pre-Economics from South Dakota State University, a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of South Dakota (USD), and a certificate for the State Government Leadership Excellence program, which is a graduate program at USD.

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This might be one of the most courageous things I’ve read in a while, where this young woman who was victimized stood up despite tremendous pressure by her abuser.

From the Argus Leader’s account of what took place at the hearing for Joel Koskan today:

In May 2022, the victim “summon(ed) the courage to reach out to a friend,” whose father was a retired agent with Department of Criminal Investigation to report further abuse.

“From then on, the pressure was on,” Kempema said, describing Koskan in an act of retaliation had allegedly reported the car she drove stolen.

and..

Dressed in a black dress with yellow and red polka-dots and tan high top sneakers, the victim told the full courtroom Tuesday, “what I want is the truth. What happened isn’t my fault.”

She told Northrup that the circuit court judge knew what needed to be done when it came to sentencing in between shuttering breaths and tears. She had realized in the time away from her family that not sending Koskan to prison was meant for the family’s comfort, contrasting what Clint Sargent, Koskan’s lawyer, said minutes before that the victim did not want him incarcerated.

Read the entire story here.

Powerful stuff.. And I suspect it might be part of what convinced the judge to levy the maximum penalty in a case that only months ago was ready to be settled with no jail time.

The SDSU poll has released new figures this morning pointing out that Republican Congressman Dusty Johnson remains the most popular political figure among all South Dakotans, while among Republicans, Governor Noem is the most popular.

 

and..

Governor Noem is far and away the most popular of the statewide figures amongst Republican respondents with a rather strong rating of 72.

Meanwhile, the congressional delegation of Johnson, Thune, and Rounds are statistically indistinguishable from one another at 62, 64, and 61, respectively. Again, the big story here is the low marks for President Trump. In this latest round, he rates at 57. While this is still a positive score and Trump is still favorably viewed by most Republicans, it is a far cry from our earliest polling.

Read the entire article here.

From Ag Week:

At Drew Peterson’s crop and cattle farm, he lost most of his buildings and had damage to all of his grain bins from the spring storm.

and..

Last year, not only did Peterson have to deal with storm clean-up and rebuilding, but he saw dry conditions across his operation.

“We didn’t really have any moisture after late July last year to finish our crops off,” said Peterson. “Our water table was really, really low, and we saw that when we harvested last year.

Read the entire story here.

Rep. Peterson’s farm was absolutely hammered by last years’ storms – you can see some of the pictures of the devastation here.

Judge Sentences Joel Koskan to 10 Years In Prison

PIERRE.S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has announced that Joel Koskan of Mellette County was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in the state penitentiary after pleading guilty to two felony counts of incest.

Koskan pleaded guilty Tuesday before Circuit Court Judge Margo Northrup in the Hughes County Courthouse in Pierre. The defendant waived his right to a delay in his sentencing and was immediately sentenced by Judge Northrup. He was remanded to the custody of the Mellette County Sheriff to begin his prison sentence.

The charges stem from a relationship that the defendant had with a minor. Each incest charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Judge Northrup ordered the sentences to be served consecutively. The defendant also was ordered to pay more than $20,000 in fines.

“Justice has been served in this case because the victim overcame extraordinary conditions to cooperate with the prosecution,” said Attorney General Jackley. “We applaud the victim for her courage and praise the difficult work of the investigators and prosecutors.”

Agencies involved in this case included the Attorney General’s Office and its State Division of Criminal Investigation.

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(Editor’s note – Here we find out that the sentences are consecutive – my emphasis. I was also informed when I inquired that being on the sex offender registry is part of the sentence.)

More coming on this story.

I think they staked out this location for the photo..

Koskan leaving court after sentences pic.twitter.com/Hfyi39QC6f

— KELO Bob Mercer (@pierremercer) April 11, 2023

Joel Koskan plead guilty to two charges of incest. Judge Northrup gave him the max penalty, totaling ten years in prison and a little over $10k in fines owed to the state. pic.twitter.com/UrTQKvlIbW

— Austin Goss (@AustinGossSD) April 11, 2023

While Easter Monday was a slow news day (except for the tremendous rate of snow melt) today will be more of a bombshell in South Dakota politics, as former State Senate candidate Joel Koskan will be arraigned on alternate charges on allegations of sexual abuse in Pierre after the rejection of a plea agreement.  The arraignment starts at 10 a.m. before Circuit Court Judge Margo Northrup in the courtroom of the Hughes County Courthouse.

No indication of what the alternate charges are, as the Attorney General’s office cannot legally file the alternate charges until the defendant waives his right to a preliminary hearing. That will happen today.

I suspect the content of the new charges may hinge on whether they were able to obtain testimony from the victim, and their willingness to participate in the prosecution of Koskan, a three-time legislative candidate who ran in the State Senate race in District 26 in 2018, 2020, and most recently in 2022.

The allegations of abuse were particularly graphic and shocked the conscience.  And South Dakota is a small state. There are a lot of people in political circles, myself included, who had met the victim. I believe she served as a legislative page, and she is well thought of. No one would wish that kind of violence or violation of her person on her.  The accusations are of such that if true, they are the ultimate betrayal of a person who said they would nurture and protect the alleged victim.

Aside from allegations of a terrible crime on a child, this case brings a sense of betrayal for many Republicans – including myself – as in past elections we’d supported Joel’s efforts to run for office.  Only to find in 2022 as charges against him were being investigated – and apparently negotiated – no one on the political end knew or suspected anything until it was too late. We found out when everyone else found out. When all of the plea agreements and investigation supposedly started, there would have been time for him to withdraw from the ballot and be replaced.  Instead, Koskan remained mute while people put time and money and resources into his race.

As the news broke, luckily for the Senate GOP Candidate PAC, their donation of $10,000 had not been cashed.. and they were able to stop the check the day they heard. Crazy people on the internet might claim they sent him money to fight the charges or for bail, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Unfortunately for others, such as the State GOP, postcards had already gone out in the race, and were far enough in the postal chain that they were impossible to claw back.  I have a postcard I could show you.. but unfortunately, I’d be compelled to blur significant portions, as this one went out with a picture of the alleged victim on it.

For those involved in the political process, there’s a lot of us feeling disgust at being used. It doesn’t compare to what the victim is said to have gone through over nearly a decade, so  the best you can hope is that today will provide healing for them.  The rest of us will always be left standing around wondering why any of it happened in the first place.

I don’t know if today will bring closure for anyone, as much as an end to a process.

More than two years ago, President Trump recognized that TikTok threatened U.S. national security and moved to ban it, but courts ruled the president lacked authority to do so. TikTok’s close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and questionable handling of data are reason enough for concern, but various instances have also arisen that confirm our worst fears about its malicious potential. It’s no surprise that many Americans agree that TikTok should be banned. And it’s why I recently introduced bipartisan legislation that would codify President Trump’s forward-looking effort to confront foreign-adversary technologies like TikTok that threaten our national security.

It’s widely acknowledged that TikTok poses a threat to U.S. national security. Intelligence agencies, tech experts, and a majority of Americans recognize this. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, which is headquartered in China, has access to its 150 million American users’ data and devices. Under Chinese law, the government just has to ask for it and ByteDance would be required to hand over this data to the CCP. After a Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States in February collecting intelligence, it’s obvious that the CCP seeks to spy on Americans. TikTok is just another iteration of this threat. Before TikTok, Huawei and ZTE deployed technology in the United States that included “backdoors” that gave China access to global communications networks.

These risks aren’t going away. Four out of the five most-downloaded apps in the United States last month are Chinese-owned. We need to be able to confront foreign-adversary technologies in a holistic and dynamic way. My bipartisan bill, the RESTRICT Act, would establish a comprehensive process for identifying, evaluating, and mitigating foreign technology threats. The RESTRICT Act would allow the secretary of commerce to address technologies that have been determined to threaten U.S. national security and to do so in a timely manner. This process would end the whac-a-mole approach that has left the United States playing catch-up as potentially malicious foreign technologies establish footholds in the U.S. market

The RESTRICT Act is the most effective option to address both TikTok and future technological threats. President Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok were struck down in federal court because they relied on a 1977 law that doesn’t suit the digital age we now live in. Other attempts to simply ban TikTok would likely face a similar fate, but the RESTRICT Act offers a rules-based process that is narrowly tailored to foreign-adversary companies, which is more likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. It builds upon President Trump’s executive order, modernizes the president’s power to fit the digital age, places guardrails on presidential authority, and gives Congress a clearly defined oversight role.

My bill takes a tailored approach to address foreign companies and technologies that threaten U.S. national security. Specifically, the RESTRICT Act targets technologies from six adversary countries: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela. While the secretary of commerce could remove or add countries to this list, Congress has authority to overrule the secretary. Importantly, the RESTRICT Act does not target the content individual Americans post online, and it does not provide the administration with any authority to censor Americans’ speech online. Again, it is narrowly focused on targeting foreign-adversary threats from places like China and Russia. This tailored approach safeguards U.S. national security from technological threats from our adversaries and upholds civil liberties.

Recent history indicates that communications technology will continue to be an area in which our adversaries seek to threaten U.S. national security interests. We need to have a policy that can address the modern and evolving threats that we face, whether it’s a video app like TikTok, telecommunications hardware like Huawei’s, or something altogether new, like the rapidly expanding artificial intelligence capabilities we have recently seen proliferate. The RESTRICT Act enables the United States to attack the challenges of today and tomorrow and keep America secure at all times.

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Well, my obsession for South Dakota Republican political ribbons got me into trouble again.

Not, any actual trouble mind you, but I had to pry my debit card out of my wallet, and probably pay more than I wanted to for a political ribbon I didn’t have in my collection.. because it’s one missing from my set.

This is a ribbon for the First Republican State Convention of South Dakota…. but it’s actually not the first convention, Keep reading.  First Republican State Convention of South Dakota, Held in Chamberlain March 23, 1892 for the election of delegates to the National Convention at Minneapolis, June 7, 1892. 

What it means was that this was the first presidential election South Dakota participated in as a state, and was able to send delegates to the national Republican convention, so this was the convention where they did so.

In fact, I had previously obtained a ribbon for that national convention a couple of years ago:

In the big scheme of things, this was actually the 4th Republican State Convention for South Dakota. (Still looking for #1, 5, 7, and 8).

I did get it as part of a set, sold together with what’s probably the earliest South Dakota Democrat ribbon I’ve run across. Apparently, Chamberlain was the hot place for a convention that year, since Democrats also held their convention in the same town.

Great items of memorabilia from South Dakota’s political past.

And if there are any collectors of South Dakota Democrat political memorabilia, drop me a note, and I’m open to a sale or trade for something I don’t have.