State Interp Concessions: Controversy, Class, and Capitalism

I had the pleasure of judging the South Dakota State Oral Interpretation Festival this weekend in Aberdeen. I also had the pleasure of chipping in to the Aberdeen speech boosters at their concession stand at Central High School:


Humor Dogs: cheese, yes, but surprisingly, no corn.

I did question the pricing of Humor Dogs over Drama Dogs; suggesting that Humor is worth more than Drama could lead to serious fisticuffs among some passionate interpers (with debaters cheering from the sidelines, twirling their pens).

I might have suggested renaming the Walking Taco to the Programmed Oratory Transition Step Taco.

But hey, what's that big ticket item at the bottom of the sign. Ties?


Sure enough! Neckties. Count on your local speech students, your noble interpers and debaters, to save the world for classy dress and capitalism.

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You can see all the 2010 State Interp medalists and team plaque winners on South Dakota Public Broadcasting's website. SDPB will also be posting videos of the Readers Theater performances, including (I hope!) Howard High School's remarkable readers theater translation of Pat Benatar's greatest hits.

Tim Even Seeks Working Man's Revolution... or at Least Representation

As I toodle through SDPB's videos from candidates for State Legislature, I pick out Tim Even, Aberdeen Democrat running for District 3 House. He draws my attention at first purely on appearance: I see the polo shirt and think the same thing I say when I teach job interviews in speech class: "This is a job interview. Find a necktie."

The first minute goes by, and I'm feeling discouraged: family history, four kids, went on the ninth grade field trip to Pierre... fine, fine, now tell me how you'll govern.

Ah, and then around 1:10, we get a working-man's manifesto:

South Dakota has a citizen legislature that I feel should be made up of a representative mix of our society. This mix of legislators has never fairly included working families or people who work for wages.

Our governors and past legislators have worked hard these past 30 years making South Dakota the number one business climate in South Dakota.

While they were doing that, what has happened to the average wage-earner in the state? Why do we have the highest percentage of working mothers in the country? And why have state employees gone over two years without a pay raise? And at the same time, we give millions of dollars in tax breaks to corporations, enticing them to build projects that would probably be built anyway.

If I'm elected, I will vote to prioritize spending to include people who go to work every day and make this a great state to live and raise a family [Tim Even, SD District 3 House candidate video, SDPB, posted 2010.08.02].

That's more like it, Tim. Shorten that biography and hammer on the practical economic issues! Remind your voters that our empty Chamber of Commerce happy talk mostly lines the pockets of the corporate interests without helping working folks spend more time raising their kids right. Carry on!

Four Lane Highways and Darwinian Selection

Bob Mercer likely loses some Madison friends with his suggestion that the South Dakota Department of Transportation ought to make U.S. Highway 12 a four-laner west of Aberdeen to Ipswich. Mercer notes another four-laner anywhere, not just the lonely 20 more miles to Ipswich, is the last thing the state can afford right now, but...

...each time I drive on U.S. 12 between Ipswich and Aberdeen, I become more convinced that expanding to a four-lane highway might make sense from a traffic safety standpoint. The area has seen more and more agriculture development including ethanol production, which has seemed to significantly increase semi-truck traffic. Whether or not the traffic numbers support such a project, I don’t know. But I do know that the combination of grain trucks, which seem to be driven safely on a consistent basis, and the impatience of many other motorists frequently isn’t a smooth mix, especially during sunrise and sunset hours [Bob Mercer, "A Four-Lane West of Aberdeen?," Pure Pierre Politics, 2010.03.31].

That mad rustling sound you hear is John Goeman digging out his flyer with the traffic numbers explaining that there's no chance that Highway 12 should qualify for more lanes ahead of Highway 34. The traffic numbers on four-lane Highway 12 east of Aberdeen are already 40% lower than traffic on two-lane Highway 34 between Madison and I-29. I'll speculate wildly that there's probably even less traffic west of Aberdeen.

But note Mercer's mention of driver impatience. Does he really want us all to spend tax dollars because some drivers can't behave like civilized human beings? Why should I have to pay more taxes because the SUV meathead on his cell phone next to me can't show the same good sense Nick Nemec does and ease up on the gas pedal? (Conservatives, I smell a campaign issue here!)

What I've said previously about safety concerns on Highway 34 may apply similarly to the road to Ipswich: we might solve the problem much more cheaply by adding a few turning lanes and telling people to slow the heck down.

But maybe I've got it wrong. Maybe we shouldn't spend money to add lanes or change speed limits on either highway. Maybe we should leave those roads exactly the way they are... and let Darwinian selection weed out the impatient drivers. Let a few leadfeet highball right up the back end of a grain truck by the ethanol plant, clear out the worst drivers, leave more room for the rest of us. Any takers?

Aberdeen School Board Tackles Elusive Air Quality Problem

Update on a story from this summer: The Aberdeen Central School Board is still trying to clear the air in it high school orchestra room. After numerous complaints from students and staff about a sickening odor in the music room, as well as some protests over the administration's initial response to simply transfer the affected orchestra director rather than allowing the orchestra to rehearse elsewhere, the Aberdeen school board is taking another tack. Last week, the board voted to spend $13,000 to move a rooftop air-intake system 75 feet away from possible pollution sources.

That price tag is actually pretty good, considering an earlier estimate was around $25K. But there is an interesting conundrum: recent air quality tests found no signs of contaminants in the room's air.

The school board thus faced a tough choice: take the word of the scientific measurements that there is no problem, or accept the data from those somewhat more sensitive instruments, the staff and students who've been getting sick in the room. The Aberdeen school board apparently decided that on this issue, they're better safe than sorry.

So just wondering: has anyone climbed into that air vent to find the mouse nest?

Learn to Park! South Dakotans Color Outside the Lines

Hat tip to Jeff Martin, who Facebooks this video of bad parking in Aberdeen, courtesy of Lonestar's Jason Robinson and Keech Rainwater:



It's interesting how slight automotive improprieties rouse us to such ridicule. I do the same thing, shouting "Learn to park!" at kittywampus cars from behind the safety of my rolled-up window. I almost never yell similar things about the way my neighbors walk or sit or bicycle. Why are we so hypersensitive about each other's automotive behavior?

Aberdeen Student Airs Central's Bad Air

It takes guts for a high school administration to throw their support behind a good debate program. Principals and superintendents know that, for all the unparalleled educational benefits a good debate program delivers, it also trains kids to speak out publicly and speak out well against injustice anywhere... including in their own schools.

Today's cheer for debaters engaging in civic activism is a shout-out to Aberdeen, where Richard Marmorstein, Central HS senior and Nationals-qualifying debater, puts his training to work to create Aberdeen Orchestra Defense, a website documenting air quality troubles in the high school orchestra room and calling on parents and the community at large to rally to action.

According to the website, students and teachers have noticed a strange smell in the Central HS orchestra room since fall 2007. The director, Dan Witte, actually became ill on several occasions, and found that if he left the orchestra room, he recovered. Quite logically, Witte moved orchestra rehearsal to the theater.

The school responded by testing the air in April and August of 2008. Writes Marmorstein, "Though none of the contaminants tested for were determined to be at an unacceptable level, the tests still strongly indicated potential problems with the air control system." The school administration first ordered the orchestra back into the orchestra room, then decided the problem wasn't the air but the teacher. Superintendent Dr. Gary Harms transferred Witte to the middle school... at least until some parents raised a ruckus and got him brought back to the high school.

A winter 2009 round of air tests showed the air quality in the orchestra room did indeed violate EPA standards. The school board has ordered some preventive measures, like requiring garbage and delivery trucks to keep their distance from the building during class time so their fumes aren't drawn into the school ventilation system, but the board won't be spending any money on filtering or other upgrades to the ventilation system yet. The school will keep testing, but they are also sending Witte and his students back into that classroom come fall.

Marmorstein is reasonably uncomfortable with sending a good director and musicians in as canaries in the coal mine, and he's putting the Web to work to call for action. He offers an archive of Aberdeen American News articles on the issue. He's built a discussion forum to encourage public conversation. And he's doing it all with free tools, using 000webhost.com's hosting service. If you can make it to the library and log onto a computer, you too can be an activist: that's why I love the Internet.

There's definitely a debate to be had over this issue. Aberdonians, one of your best and brightest is calling you to conversation and action. Get to it!

By the way, you can tell Marmorstein is a Lincoln-Douglas debater, as he invokes Martin Luther King Jr.'s line about injustice anywhere threatening justice everywhere. Good quote!

Aberdeen's Holkesvik Wins 2009 Madville Mundtster Award

Congratulations to Aberdeen senior Michael Holkesvik, the winner of the first annual Madville Mundtster award!Holkesvik (shown here with proud Aberdeen Central forensics coach Colleen Meisenheimer) has come to Madison to compete at the Mundt Debate Tournament all four years of his high school career. Holkesvik and his partner Colter Heirigs qualified for finals and placed second in Varsity Policy debate. I personally had the pleasure of judging Holkesvik's oration on the impending end of the world in a preliminary Oratory round.

Holkesvik was the top Madville Mundtster, with 146 career points at the Mundt Tournament. In all, 19 seniors from around eastern South Dakota came to Madison for their fourth Mundt. They are listed below, with their National Forensic League point totals from each year. Congratulations to all, and thanks for coming to Madison to make the Mundt another great competitive experience! (More Mundt results coming up... but it's my family supper time!)

Four-Year Madville Mundtsters: 2009
School	Name	2006	2007	2008	2009	Total
Aberdeen	Alex Friedrichsen	35	27	32	13	107
Aberdeen	Michael Holkesvik	38	32	33	40	146
Aberdeen	Shawn Schnabel	37	25	35	33	130
Aberdeen	Lauren Werth	40	25	32	31	128
Brookings	Matt Aadland	41	28	9	43	127
Brookings	Keith Campbell	19	29	26	26	100
Brookings	Amie Hirschoff	23	25	8	27	83
Brookings	Jimmy Kerr	37	25	8	42	118
Brookings	Chantel Taylor	28	21	18	24	91
Brookings	Dorian Walker	28	18	28	32	106
Huron	Luke Cumbee	21	27	31	42	121
Huron	Matt McGirr	24	25	32	47	131
Madison	Meagan Abraham	15	15	18	24	72
Madison	Jacqueline Adams	15	15	18	24	72
Milbank	Scott Athey	15	22	26	36	99
Milbank	Daniel Tuchscherer	28	19	39	25	111
SF Lincoln	Pete Heidepriem	28	15	22	26	91
SF Roosevelt	Jessica Herbert	25	26	27	34	112
SF Washington	Jesse Goodwin	30	33	38	36	143
Criteria:
1: Competed at Mundt all four years of high school career, 2006-2009
2: Points = NFL points earned in actual rounds of competition, including finals

Regents Pick Ohioan Smith for NSU President

A press release from the Board of Regents says James M. Smith of Bowling Green State University has beaten Madison's own Mark Lee in the competition to become the next president of Northern State University.

To Dr. Smith, welcome to South Dakota! To Dr. Lee, don't sweat it! Where would you rather live: beautiful Lake Herman, or Aberdeen? Besides, why would anyone want to be Ken Blanchard's boss? ;-)

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To the good, Dr. Smith and his wife Connie Ruhl-Smith have produced research (cited in this punchy 2007 essay from the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration) showing that corporate-style reforms and for-profit schools endorsed by conservatives do not produce better education. Nice!

New Political Breed: Straw Bale Republican!

First Log Cabin Republicans, now... Straw Bale House Republicans? One can hope: Jason Williams, the 25-year-old chair of the Brown County Republicans, is also a leader in sustainable, local home construction. KELO reports on Williams's straw bale house project in Stratford.

What makes straw bale construction so great? Well, as you look at your thermometer and see that it is –18°F this morning, think two words: R-40. That's the insulation factor Williams gets from his bales. If you have 2x6 walls with fiberglass insulation, you might be getting R-20. Straw's high R factor also means less need for air conditioning in the summer.

Some more reasons Williams's straw bale house is a model for South Dakota:

• Straw is a local product: we could build great houses from our own farm fields. Who needs cellulosic ethanol? Just bale that straw and build!
• Straw cuts down on cutting down trees, and it renews more quickly.
• Three Little Pigs be darned: straw stands up to wind (tornados!) better than stick houses.

Williams is also keeping it local with the non-straw elements of his castle. Wherever possible, he's using salvaged materials—timber from old buildings, discarded doors and windows, etc.

I recall Williams putting up some pretty flimsy arguments during his brief stint blogging on the Red Blue and Purple, the Aberdeen American news blog.* But when it comes to construction, there's no arguing with this Republican straw man. Sustainable straw bale construction: that's conservatism you can believe in!

*I notice that Jason Williams's name has been purged from Red Purple and Blue, and those of his posts that remain, such as here, here, and here, have been stripped of his name. What gives? Must be another liberal media plot to stifle conservative voices.

Wireless Internet: Great Investment for Madison

A quick note as I peruse the Madison city budget for 2008—I find the following costs for the Madison Public Library:

• Cost of new books for the Madison Public Library: $32,595 (and worth every penny!)
• Cost of automatic door opener: $4,000
• Cost of wireless Internet access: $600

Talk about opening doors: the library is able to provide its patrons with wireless Internet for less than $2 a day. Now that's service!

Imagine what a bargain it would be for the city to make the entire downtown a wireless Internet hotspot for shoppers, businesses, and our guests from out of town... just like Aberdeen does!

Aberdeen Downtown Going Wireless; Madison Should Follow!

today's special from RealMadison.org!

Supposedly someone at the Lake Area Improvement Corporation is working on downtown revitalization (although I'll be darned if I can get them to reply to my e-mails about the project).

Don't think too hard, kids: here's a great idea for Main Street development from our friends at the Aberdeen Downtown Association: make downtown one big wireless Internet hotspot!

When Margot Gillette took a job with the Aberdeen Downtown Association a few years ago, she started a to-do list.

No. 1 dealt with the [beautification] and revitalization of downtown Aberdeen. But the next item required a bit of technology.

"On my list of to-dos, No. 2 is to make downtown Wi-Fi," said Gillette, economic manager of the downtown association. "And that's just what we're doing."

The Aberdeen Downtown Association has partnered with Tel Serv Communications Inc., a local technology company, to make Main Street - from Sixth Avenue to Railroad Avenue - wireless. Downtown patrons will now be able to get wireless connections along the street and inside most downtown businesses. Eric Hanson, co-owner of Tel Serv, said about 20 businesses are participating so far. Others have shown interest.

[see Emily Arthur-Richardt, "Wi-Fi Now Available to Downtown Businesses," Aberdeen American News, 2008.08.21]

Among the pluses of a downtown wireless Internet hotspot:

• Wireless access can draw more students downtown (remember, every high school and college student in Madison has a wireless-equipped laptop).
• Employees can move around the store or office with wireless devices while helping customers.
• Visiting sales reps and other professionals can access Internet while calling on downtown businesses (sales reps like that kind of thing).

Tel Serv Communications is working with the Aberdeen Downtown Association to provide the free signal. Tel Serv co-owner Eric Hanson estimates the project cost "amounts to thousands of dollars." Heck, if Madison can spend $12,500 just to study the potential for high-tech business development, we can probably swing a few thousand to build a practical high-tech service that immediately and directly benefits thousands of Madison residents and visitors. Find a corporate partner (Knology? Midco?), give 'em ad rights to slap a little company logo on the hotspot welcome page, and let it rip!

Downtown hotspot for Madison -- add that to the to-do list!

Smokey on Two Wheels -- Aberdeen Motorcycle Cops

When we were little, my brother and I watched CHiPs religiously. I still hum the theme every now and then when I go buzzing around on the scooter.

I am thus pleased on a sentimental level, not to mention an economic level, to see the Aberdeen Police Department encouraging its officers to get out and ride. Officer Mike Law (can't make that name up!) tells KELO that riding his Harley for work is fun and saves the city money. A happy cop might be a little more inclined to give you a friendly warning rather than a speeding ticket.
Plus every day patrolling on a motorcycle could easily cut fuel costs for an individual officer by over 50%. Consider that a standard 2008 Crown Victoria gets 15 mpg in the city and 23 on the highway, while a new Buell Ulysses police motorcycle can get 51 city, 64 country.

Cops on motorcycles are also a statement against the "bigger is better" argument that gets everyone in SUVs. Too many drivers think they need to drive a tank down the Interstate or to the mall to keep themselves safe in a wreck. Police probably face more automotive threats than anyone else on the road, and yet they are willing to take to the streets on two wheels, without two tons of metal around them.

I don't expect to see the South Dakota brethern of Ponch and Jon out on their service Harleys in December. But if Officer Law can face the mean streets of Aberdeen on his open Harley every now and then, the rest of us can consider driving smaller vehicles.

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Update 2008.05.27: An eager reader submits this photo of one of Madison's finest on the city police motorcycle during a DSU homecoming parade. The reader says we have a lot of riders on the force. Let's hope we see more of Chief Pulford and Officers Haug, O'Loughlen, et al. out patrolling with their big, buggy smiles!

LAIC Housing Study Coming Up -- Will We Learn from Our Neighbors?

The Lake Area Improvement Corporation, that fine embodiment of government intervention in the free market, releases its long-awaited housing study this week (Wednesday Feb 20, as announced by new LAC president Mike McDowell at the LAIC's annual meeting last month). We'll find out what sort of Five-Year Plan our economic development Politburo has come up with to help more folks call Madison Home Sweet Home.

Does Madison have a housing shortage? The city commission thinks so, at least enough to take on over $200K in debt and lock up increased tax revenues for 15 years to subsidize the development of maybe a dozen housing units in the new TIF district in southeast Madison. Our man Hunter has expressed the opinion that we might solve our housing shortage by focusing on renovating existing units first rather than building new. Get everyone up to code, revamp all those narrow 1900 staircases, and rewire those old houses to handle all of today's modern electronics. (I'll be Jon is advocating electrical upgrades just so more people can get online, read the Madville Times, and boost the number of referrals to his own website. ;-) ) Hunter's argument fits with my previous statements that we have lots of prime residential spots, especially in our bustling downtown, that just need some work to make them real draws.

Some of our neighbors are taking different approaches to their housing situations. The economic development folks in Plankinton are offering free land to workers willing to move in and build instead of commuting from Mitchell or elsewhere. (30 lots offered, 11 taken already!) That's a good community building strategy: it's nice to have workers drive to town to put in their hours in your factories and other facilities, but folks who live in town send their kids to your school, serve in community organizations, and are around on Saturday to help their neighbors. Plankinton recognizes that it's not enough to throw money at big corporations to build your community: instead of playing the Toyota lottery to draw one big employer, you might get as much bang for your buck by investing in housing to draw a few dozen workers and their families to become your neighbors.

Over in Howard, the Miner County Community Revitalization group has taken out a $250K loan to renovate an underused apartment complex. The Howard folks appear to be following a philosophy laid out by Aberdeen City Commissioner Clint Rux, who argued that Aberdeen's focus on TIFs for new housing skews toward the professional class and ignores the needs of the general workforce. Rux holds that folks who are moving to town for a new job aren't looking to buy a new house right off the bat. They want to get to know the town first, make sure they like the new job and milieu, and bank some cash before they tie themselves down with a mortgage. Given that it takes a month or two to close on a house, even the folks who know from Day 1 they're ready to settle will still need temporary digs.

Which route will the LAIC prescribe in its housing study? Which way will the LAIC throw its money: toward big developers and new houses on the edge of town, working families and affordable apartments and houses, or something Unexpected™?

Four-Laners Save Money, Time, Lives

Hat tip to Prof. Schaff at SDPolitics:

The Highway 34 "Four for the Future" crowd faces some stiff competition for highway funds from our friends to the north who want to four-lanify US Hwy 12 from Aberdeen to Mobridge, creating a zoom-zoom corridor for hunters and fishermen headed for the Big Mo, not to mention entrepreneurs looking to expand business opportunities in Selby, Ipswich, and all other points in between.

Our local boosters of the Highway 34 project have a nice website and letters of support from various local leaders and businesspeople (PDF alert on those letters!). The Highway 12 boosters -- the "Heartland Expressway Task Force" -- may not have a website (nothing comes up on this evening's Google search), but they have some rock 'em sock 'em evidence that four lane highways are a good investment for everyone. The Aberdeen American News (again, thank you, Dr. Schaff, for the link!) reports today that the Highway 12 boosters are touting a 2006 study by The Road Information Program (TRIP) that finds our 700 miles of the interstate highway network save each South Dakotan $1776 every year. The breakdown of annual savings:

1. $1102 saved on food, clothing, and other consumer goods -- not because the interstate drains all the small town and takes everyone to Wal-Mart, but because producers can transport their goods faster and more cheaply on the interstate, lowering costs for all of us.
2. $39 saved in fuel (seems counterintuitive to me: people go faster on the interstate, burn more fuel, but maybe less stop-and-go makes up the difference?)
3. $487 in saved time. "The system saves 33 hours of travel time per year per state resident."
4. $148 saved in health care costs and lost productivity thanks to fewer accidents. [All data reported by Russ Keen, "Road to Expansion," Aberdeen American News, 2007.12.12].

That last data on safety is complemented by this other notable statistic: since 1956, the interstates have saved 900 lives in South Dakota. The big four-laners are flat-out safer, with a fatality rate per miles traveled less than 40% that of the same rate on other highways.


Of course, here's your grain of road salt for the evening: The Road Information Project is a "traffic research group supported by road builders" [Dana Treen, "Aging Brings Concerns over Safety on the Road," Jacksonville (FL) Times-Union, 2003.08.11] and created in 1968 by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, whose mission statement declares "We Advance the Interests of the Transportation Construction Industry. Period."

The source doesn't disprove the information. I'd recommend checking the report's methodology... but I can't find the South-Dakota-specific research on TRIP's Research Report website. Still, an ambitious highway booster can probably find some lessons in the methodology employed and results found by TRIP in several other states.

We should note that the TRIP study focuses on interstate highways, not regular four-lane highways with all the other county road and railroad intersections, so their data won't extrapolate perfectly to the proposed route. But even supposing the numbers did extrapolate perfectly... hey! where's the back of my envelope?

1. Per citizen savings per year: $1776
   
2. Citizens most immediately served by proposed US-12 expansion: 70,957 (Counties included: Walworth 5494, Edmunds 4412, Brown 34706, Campbell 1565, McPherson 2617, Potter 2351, Faulk 2386, Spink 6899, Corson 4366, Dewey 6161)
3. Total annual savings: $126,019,362
4. Cost of US Highway 12 four-lanification project between Burbank and Walla Walla, Washington: $363,971,360
5. Length of Burbank-Walla Walla project (based on their mileposts): 40.3 miles
6. Per mile cost: $9.03 million
7. Length of route from Aberdeen to Mobridge: ~95 miles.
   
8. Estimated total cost of four-lanifying US-12 from Aberdeen to Mobridge: $858 million
9. Time required for individual cost savings to add up to highway project cost (i.e., the very broad, social-scale break-even time): 6.8 years
   

That's actually not a bad timeframe for breaking even. That's also very slapdash math, not to be cited in any serious business plan! But if the Highway 12 boosters can bring numbers like this to the table, Madison's Highway 34 boosters should be ready to do the same.

Aberdeen School District: Take This Drug Test or Else... Please?

AP provides Aberdeen's daily dose of doublespeak:

The Aberdeen School Board is considering requiring all Aberdeen Central High School students to sign up for a voluntary drug testing program.

The school district's lawyer is recommending that all students could be required to sign up because in the end, the proposed program is still voluntary [AP, "Changes Pending in Proposed Aberdeen Drug Testing," KELOLand.com, 2007.11.13].

We do love mandatory voluntary drug testing. But hey, didn't we already cover this issue?

Folks in Aberdeen might be thinking they had already covered it, too. But district lawyer Rory King has helped the board pull the switcheroo: when the board presented the plan at a public forum last month, it applied solely to kids in extracurricular activities. Now King has changed his recommendation, and the new policy has gotten first reading without any discussion before a public forum [see Russ Keen, "Drug Testing Plan Altered," Aberdeen American News, 2007.11.13].

(Oh, but shame on me, criticizing an elected school board. How can I be so negative?)

Both Keen and the AP article does explain that the Aberdeen Central students would all be required to put their names on the list for the pee-in-the-cup lottery. The voluntary part comes in that if a student's name is drawn the parents (or the student herself, if she's 18 or over) can refuse the test.

Now we all know how that works. Imagine the school draws your name. Your parents (or you, dear non-minors) say, "No way! Keep your hands off my kid's pee." Thanks to the school's Big-Brotherism, the rumor mill starts spinning: "Ooo, did you hear so-and-so refused the drug test? I wonder what she's hiding...." It's not right, but that's how the local rumor mill works.

The Aberdeen school district should stay out of this mess. If parents want their kids tested for drugs, they can haul 'em down to the clinic right now. School-mandated drug-testing (or mandatory sign-up for voluntary drug-testing, or whatever Orwellian foolishness the Aberdeen school district is trying to foist upon its citizens) will probably do more harm to innocent kids by invading privacy and generating rumors.

Video Lottery Not Just a Business Decision

Aberdeen Mayor Mike Levsen is grumbling about his city's cap on video lottery machines. Mayor Levsen says Aberdeen's limit of one video lottery machine for every 424 people (that's 58 machines for 24,658 Aberdonians) should never have become law. "It raises issues of where the city government gets involved in individual business decisions, and the less we can do of that the better," Levsen tells KELO [Erich Schaffhauser, "Video Lottery Cap in Aberdeen," KELOLand.com, 2007.11.06].

We beg to differ. We're not talking about a grocery store's inventory of Cheetos or the number of tables or tacky signs a restaurant plans to install. Video lottery is a tax-collection scheme authorized and run by the government, which grants private vendors the privilege of operating the machines and sharing in the profits. The state gets 50% of the revenues from video lottery. If there's an argument to be had for why cities shouldn't be interfering in video lottery, that argument would come from Governor Rounds telling cities not to interfere with Pierre's funnest tax grab, not a defense of free market business decisions.

Sioux Falls city councillor De Knudson sees that state-municipality conflict and sounds ready to fight it out to get cities the right to control video lottery for quality-of-life reasons. Video lottery is a public health issue and a "blight" on the city, says Knudson [AP, "Sioux Falls May Try to Limit Video Lottery," Rapid City Journal, 2007.11.06]. Knudson and fellow SF city councillor Kevin Kavanaugh are seeking a cap of one machine per 125 residents.

Video lottery is clearly not just a business decision. Government has as much right to regulate video lottery as any other form of taxation... or pollution.