Hyperion's Huddleston Faces Another Lawsuit... from His Mother

Mr. Epp documents another pending lawsuit against Hyperion CEO Albert Huddleston. Mr. Huddleston is being sued by his mother, Erika Huddleston, over alleged mismanagement of a family trust fund. Albert's dad Gordon died in 1981. Gordon set aside a trust fund to provide Erika income for the remainder of her life. After her death, the kids get to divvy up the remaining money. Albert was named co-trustee of the fund with Erika. Erika has suffered a stroke and been in and out of assisted-living situations. Her lawsuit (or her lawyer's lawsuit; an appended motion indicates she may now be incapacitated) alleges Albert has withheld payments with the intent of enriching himself.

Mom's lawsuit comes in addition to a suit by the Hunt family over Huddleston's management of another trust fund.

I'll leave it to the courts to decide who the skunks are in these cases. But this latest lawsuit does suggest the Huddlestons of Dallas just can't play nicely with their money. If Hyperion ever does get around to building an oil refinery or a landfill in South Dakota, the profits might all go toward paying CEO Albert's legal bills.

HB 1247: Consolidate School Administration and Services

Dr. Fahrenwald, buff up that résumé...

Republicans love reforming education by firing people. GOP legislators Rep. Jacqueline Sly and Sen. Jim Bradford have floated HB 1247, a measure to create school administration regions and consolidate administrative and support services in our K-12 system. It's semi-consolidation: no school district is closed, but all school districts with enrollment under a thousand (in Lake and surrounding counties, that's everyone but Madison, Brookings, West Central, and Sioux Falls) would be required to share "superintendents, assistant superintendents, business managers, and other management level employees." The bill excludes building principals from the shared hire requirement. It does allow regions to consolidate other service specialists, including "curriculum directors, technology coordinators, speech pathologists, directors of special education, and others who provide services within a school district."

This plan would leave a couple dozen big districts untouched. It could semi-consolidate 140 districts into maybe fewer than 50 regions. Suppose that cuts 90 supers, 90 business managers and maybe 200 service specialists. Save $40K a head (wild guess), and that's over $15M statewide. Not bad for a plan that doesn't close a single school, fire a single teacher, or make a single child ride the bus to the next county.

I rather like this plan. It's worth talking about. The sticking point I have is letting the state secretary of education draw the region boundaries. One way or another, this plan is orders from Pierre, a contradiction of Republicans' commitment to local control. But local districts might find the orders more tolerable if the Legislature let them pick their own teams. I wonder—would self-organized admin regions work any better?

HB 1245: Repeal Death Penalty in South Dakota

Count on my neighbor Representative Gerald Lange (D-8/Madison) to stand up for principle and good policy. Lange is prime sponsor of House Bill 1245, a measure to repeal South Dakota's death penalty. Thirteen legislators, all Democrats, have signed their name to this bill. I applaud them for having the gumption to look South Dakota's screwed-up, bloodthirsty machismo in the eye and say that killing people, even killing bad people, is wrong.

Here's a quick review of the reasons you should call your legislators and tell them to back HB 1245:

1. Capital punishment doesn't deter crime.
2. Capital punishment costs more than life imprisonment.
3. Capital punishment risks killing innocent people.
4. Killing prisoners is immoral.

Let's do the right thing for our budget, for justice, and for our souls. Stop state-sponsored killing—pass HB 1245 and repeal the death penalty.

Year of Unity: What About Whiteclay?

Hat tip to John Andrews at South Dakota Magazine!

Kevin Abourezek of the Lincoln Journal Star draws our attention to new efforts to rehabilitate Whiteclay, the Nebraska border village that sells around 4 million cans of beer annually, mostly to residents of South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation. Bruce BonFleur of the ABOUT Christian ministry has started a used clothing store and soup kitchen in Whiteclay and is trying to get resources to raze abandoned buildings and start a recycling center and some Lakota-owned businesses.

Some Nebraska officials are trying to help, and they met last month with some South Dakota legislators, including House Speaker Tim Rave, to see what could be done.

Rave agreed that solutions in Whiteclay and on the Pine Ridge Reservation would require support from state and federal leaders.

...Rave also said he didn't think South Dakota leaders would support spending money on solutions in Whiteclay this legislative session, considering the fiscal crisis his state is facing [Kevin Abourezk, "A Search for Solutions at Whiteclay," Lincoln Journal Star, 2010.01.31].

Hmmm... is that how the Year of Unity is going to play out? We'll talk a lot, but we won't put our money where our mouth is? But you know us poor white folks: we can't even afford three cents more a gallon for gasoline to fix our roads.

I know someone is going to hit the comment section and say we can't solve the Indians' problems by throwing money at them. But we found the resources to haul firewater across the frontier to introduce our red brothers to the "blessings" of "civilization"; we should be able to find a few pennies in our budget, even in tight economic times, to support solutions to the problems we caused.

Van Ormer Launches Local Booster Blog

If you need a break from all the political wrangling on the blogs and prefer some gentle reminders of how nice it is to live here on the prairie, check out area writer Alan Van Ormer's new blog, Rural Ventures. Van Ormer freelances for various regional publications, including Prairie Business. Now he's bringing articles about successful local businesses directly to us via the Web.

Van Ormer is focusing on a four-county area: Lake, McCook, Miner, and Kingsbury. With the sponsorship of Prostrollo's, Heartland, and the Lake Area Improvement Corporation, it's a fair bet he'll also be focusing strictly on good news about the local economy.

Good news is good: we need to spread the word about the business and cultural oppportunities here in rural South Dakota. Rural Ventures will do a good job of that.

But we also need media to question the status quo. Low-paying as such questioning may be, that's my job.

Moody County Working on Wind Power -- Lake County, Catch Up!

Hat tip to John Walker!

Moody County is moving ahead of Lake County on the wind power front. The Moody County Commission is updating its zoning rules for wind farms. Colorado wind energy developer Distributed Generation Systems has been measuring wind around Flandreau since last year. DisGen has done two wind projects, a 10-MW wind farm in Pennsylvania and a 16-MW farm in Colorado. They're also working on a number of Native American wind projects, including a 30-MW project with our neighbors on the Rosebud. In an August interview, DisGen project development manager Mike Moldal said the Moody County development could be bigger:

He said Flandreau East is a potentially 100-400 megawatt project (Moldal later refined his estimate of the project to "at least 50, maybe 100" megawatts) that would be located on high ground east of Flandreau. Moldal estimates that the project would include between 50 and 200 wind turbines and would span 12,000 acres. Santee involvement sought Disgen is in the process of working with private landowners in that area and will also offer the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe an opportunity to be involved in the project. The Flandreau West project would span a considerably smaller 640 acres west of Egan. Moldal said he has been in negotiations with three different landowners in that area, including John and Monte Mousel, Berdyne Bowen, and Arvin and Carol Van Holland. "We've tied up a section of land up there," he said. "Those three landowners are very excited about this project, and we anticipate installing 10-12 turbines for a project just shy of 20 megawatts" [Ryan Woodard, "Wind Power in Moody County's Future?" Brookings Register, 2009.08.28].

If Moody County can draw wind energy projects like that, so can Lake County. Federal data shows the wind whipping Junius and Madison is at least as strong as what blows by Flandreau and Egan. But when even local wind developers get a lukewarm response from the city (go check with Heartland? that's the best we can manage?), we're just asking to be left behind in the drive to capitalize on modern energy technology.

As the LAIC struggles to recoup lost jobs in Lake County, perhaps they should get us on the radar of DisGen and other wind developers who could bring some green jobs and green energy to our side of the Lake-Moody county line.

Legislature: Roads, Farmers Markets, Pipeline Tax, and Corporate Democracy

Some legislative notes to sprinkle on your Wheaties:

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The State Senate Transportation Committee has unanimously killed SB1, the road tax increases. What was that Senator Mike Vehle from Mitchell said in October?

Everyone in this committee.. has a feeling that we need to do something... We'd all like to do probably a lot more than we feel in a recession we can do. But we need to take a hard look and be ready to explain to our colleagues the need that our highways have.... [A]ny society that lets its infrastructure fail or start to fail is also going down a wrong road and putting our society in jeopardy [Senator Mike Vehle, 2009.10.14].

Senator Vehle yesterday abandoned the bill, deciding he didn't want to fight to convince his colleagues to pay for the roads that get them to Pierre and back. Oh well. Maybe we all can just stop driving and do all our business online.

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If we can still get to the farmers markets over our new gravel roads, we might find more local sellers. Democrat Pam Merchant from Brookings is proposing House Bill 1222 to exempt farmers market vendors from licensing requirements. The bill does add some labeling requirements—basically a sticker to say this food's homegrown; if you have allergies, you take your chances. But essentially, HB 1222 is Democrats promoting deregulation for small local businesspeople. I bet the Republican-controlled Legislature kills this one. Please, Russ, prove me wrong!

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Republicans and Democrats are working together to try again to get a pipeline tax. Senate Bill 161 imposes a two-cent-per-barrel tax on oil pumping through big pipelines (i.e., TransCanada's) in South Dakota. Two cents per barrel: at today's crude oil prices, that's a 0.027% tax—less than three cents on every hundred dollars TransCanada will make. And like previous measures, SB 161 caps the tax at $30 million and dedicates it to a fund to clean up oil spills and other messes TransCanada will make.

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Senator Heidepriem says if corporations really are persons qualified to participate in democratic processes, then they should behave democratically. His Senate Bill 165 tells corporations, "Go ahead! Contribute to politicians and campaigns. But you have to get the approval of a majority of your stockholders first." Ah, democracy!

Unemployment Lower, Workforce Participation Higher for More Educated

Stats for breakfast! Watertown school board member Fred Deustch is blogging this week from the big Federal Relations Conference in Washington, D.C. He shares some employment data that shows why university is the best place to ride out a recession. Not only is the university schedule and dress code more relaxed than the office, but you're also a whole lot more likely to get a job and keep it during the next recession.

Deutsch points to BLS data that breaks down participation in the workforce and unemployment by amount of education obtained. The following chart gives the numbers for December 2009 (click to enlarge):
The official unemployment rate for folks who didn't finish high school is over 15%. Folks who finished high school and folks who did some college straddle the national average, at 10.5% and 9% respectively. Unemployment among folks with college degrees is at 5%.

Those data don't surprise me. The workforce participation rates do. Over 50% of folks who didn't finish high school not only are not working but are not even looking for work. A majority of high school dropouts either don't want to work, are shut out of the workforce by higher education requirements, or choose to stay home and take care of the house and kids (valuable work in itself!). There is some good sense there: if I had a choice between digging ditches for someone else and staying home to raise my own kids and my own vegetables, I'd be strongly inclined to the latter.

As folks accumulate more education, they have more appealing work opportunities. Plus, having made all the effort to get those degrees, university grads feel that much more pressure to go do some specialized work with those degrees (and pay off their student loans).

It's probably not enough to say, "Go to college, and you're set." University will expose you to new ideas and new opportunities, but you have to have ambition in the first place to jump through the university hoops. Still, it's encouraging to know that, even with so much competition (university grads make up the largest chunk of the workforce, HS dropouts the smallest), the most highly educated workers can still ride out the recession with a 5% unemployment rate.

Amerts Want to Build Wind Turbines in Madison!

In policy debate, we talk about overtagging, or powertagging, when a debater reads a headline or tag that completely exaggerates the main point of the evidence they read.

In the Madison Daily Leader, we talk about undertagging, when a headline totally undersells a story and misses the big news.

The latest star example: last Friday's headline, "Wind Turbine Ordinances Reviewed." Bad enough it's in passive voice—what, couldn't afford the ink to say "Commission Reviews Wind Turbine Ordinances"? I nearly skipped the story, thinking, "Great, the city read its rules. Call me when you actually do something."

This shoddy headline hid reporter Chuck Clement's real story. Seven paragraphs in, we learn that local construction magnates Don and Dick Amert want to build wind turbines in Madison. Amerts have a pretty clear plan: two 80-foot towers with 65-kW turbines sporting 27-foot blades. They want to sell the power to the city and thus offset their utility costs.

Clement's subdued prose makes it sound like the city's response was, Well, it's possible, but you'll have to work out an agreement with Heartland, and you'll need a fence and a lot of signs to warn people about those dangerous wind turbines....

Um, hello? City of Madison? Wind turbines! Locally generated power! Giant gleaming symbols of progressivity visible from miles away on the highway!

I've worked for Don and Dick. They are no crazy idealist hippies (well, maybe Don, just a little). They buy tools to get the job done. If these wind turbines weren't practical, maintainable machines that would produce a return on investment, Amerts wouldn't waste their breath on them.

Kudos to Amerts for forward thinking. Let's double-check the noise outputs and shadow flicker, talk to the neighbors, and sign that agreement! Let's get some Amert wind power into our grid!

HB 1150: Reduce Small Schools' Funding for Open Enrollees

HB 1150 is a bit of a headscratcher. Sponsored by Rep. Peters and Senator Gray, and backed by our Rep. Lange, HB 1150 reduces the state aid small schools get for each student who open enrolls in their district.

In South Dakota, you can pick your school district. If you live in Madison, but you'd rather send your kids to Chester or Rutland (or vice versa), you can (with the approval of the school boards involved). When you kids enroll at Rutland in the fall, Rutland qualifies for another $4665 in state aid for each open enrollee. Madison loses the same amount.

HB 1150 doesn't change that per-student allocation. The money stays with the kids. And that makes sense: more students means more books, more chalk, more barf clean-up sprinkle.

HB 1150 does change the small-school adjustment. Right now, the state gives medium school districts with enrollment of 200 or less (like Rutland and Oldham-Ramona) an additional $847 per student. School districts enrolling between 200 and 600 students get a similar adjustment proportionate to and declining with enrollment. Large districts with 600 and above (like Madison) get no such boost.

HB 1150 says the state will calculate the small-school adjustment for open-enrolled students based on the enrollment of the school they attend or the school they left, whichever is greater. What does that mean?

1. If a student open-enrolls out of one small district into another (say, from Rutland to Oldham-Ramona), no change: the district getting the student still gets the full $847 small-school adjustment.
2. If a student open-enrolls from a medium district to a small district (say, from Arlington or Colman-Egan to Rutland), the small school still gets an adjustment for that student, but the amount is based on the formula for the medium school the student came from. That reduces the aid Rutland gets for a student open-enrolling from Colman-Egan by about $120.
3. If a student open-enrolls from a large district to a small district (say from Madison to Rutland), the small school adjustment disappears. For instance, a Madison student open-enrolling in Rutland still brings the base $4665 in state aid, but not the additional $847 of the small-school adjustment.

Have Pat Powers check my numbers. Then, school-choice advocates, you might want to get cranky.* HB 1150 seems to penalize small-school success. It reduces the bonus offered to Rutland, Oldham-Ramona, and other small schools good enough to recruit enrollees from larger districts by up to 16%.

Of course, this bill has no impact on Chester and Madison, neither of which gets the small-school bonus for cherry-picking each other's basketball players—er, I mean, students.

This bill does raise the question of whether the small-school adjustment is fair in the first place. Smaller schools do cost more to run per student. Are small schools and small communities valuable enough to South Dakota that we will foot the bill for some inefficiency? Or do we just not have the money to support small schools?

Parting numbers: If I'm reading enrollment numbers correctly, about 120 of our 160 school districts receive some small-school adjustment. Those schools teach just 27% of our students. Ignoring geography, we could consolidate those 120 districts into about 50 with an enrollment of 600. The back of my envelope says the resulting complete elimination of the small-school adjustment would save the state about $18 million a year... in return for closing school districts in 70 communities.

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*School choice advocates might also be cheesed over the hoghousing of SB 63, the charter schools bill. Our Senator Russell Olson joined a unanimous vote in deleting all the provisions about allowing charter schools statewide and narrowed the bill to allow only the Native American pilot charter school... if we can get a grant from Uncle Sam. (What did I say about blame for the federal deficit last week?)

HB 1160: Home Schoolers Get Opportunity Scholarship with 26 ACT

Home schoolers, keep hitting those books! Representative Dan Lederman (R-16/Dakota Dunes) and Senator Stan Adelstein (R-32/Rapid City) are proposing HB 1160 to open the state's Opportunity Scholarship to students pursuing alternative instruction. Under HB 1160, home schoolers who don't fulfill the exact course requirements laid out by the Board of Regents for admission could still qualify for the Opportunity Scholarship by posting good test scores.

HB 1160 does set the bar higher for home schoolers. Regular high school graduates with the proper official coursework need only score a 24 on the ACT. Under HB 1160, home schoolers would have to prove their brain mettle by scoring a 26 or better on the ACT or a 1200 or better on the math and verbal sections of the SAT. But hey—for $5000, the extra effort is worth it!

And home school students have a fair shot at making that spread: in 2009, home schoolers apparently outperformed the national average on the ACT by 1.4 points.

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Related: I see my Senator Russell Olson (R-8/Madison) has his name at the top of another bill tinkering with the Opportunity Scholarship. HB 1190 amends the one-semester speech requirement to include debate and requires another semester of language arts credit... like Advanced Debate! The bill also allows students to fulfill their two-semester fine arts requirement with participation in extracurricular fine arts activities that meet the fine arts curriculum standards... like debate! Russ! I didn't know you cared! Thank you!

HB 1190 tightens the math requirement, specifying that the fourth full math credit must be "advanced math," not just any elective or bonehead math. It also allows students to count approved career or technical programs toward qualifying. Finally, it requires more P.E. and health. Right now, kids can qualify with a semester of P.E. or health. by 2013, kids will have to take a semester of P.E. and a semester of health. The bill does cut a little health slack, allowing that course to take place as early as sixth grade or even allowing the school to certify that they "integrate health across the curriculum" instead of offering a separate course.

I think I'd still rather home school and ace the ACT. It's less complicated.

HB 1153: Republicans Weaken Property Rights, Remove Barrier to Eminent Domain

Representative Shantel Krebs (R-10/Renner) and Senator Mike Vehle (R-20/Mitchell) are primary sponsors of a measure that would weaken South Dakotans' protection against eminent domain. HB 1153 would repeal the requirement that railroad companies get approval of the Governor or the Transportation Commission to exercise eminent domain.

A railroad company that wants to take your land would still have to go to court. The problem here is that HB 1153 eliminates one more chance that South Dakota farmers, ranchers, and other landowners have to make their case that their land is their land and that the railroad at least needs to offer a better price.

I see one Democrat, Senator Dan Ahlers (D-25/Dell Rapids), with his name on this stinky bill. The other 13 legislators who want to make it easier for certain powerful corporations to take your land are all Republicans.

Plank 11 of the South Dakota Republican Party platform of 2008 says "The South Dakota Republican Party strongly supports private property rights." HB 1153 says otherwise.