RE: Watertown and the Big Sioux, State Legislators, Change of City Gubmint, and Secret Voters.

By Gary Dickson, Editor – Siouxland Observer

So, you’re probably asking, “What the heck does a photo postcard of a street scene of downtown Watertown, S.D. have to do with Siouxland?” More than you’d think, Buckaroo. More than you’d think.

Stay with me, here. Okay? First, congratulate yourself on being a sharp-eyed reader and seeing that it was a postcard from Watertown in 1913. For that, you deserve an Attaperson!

Moving on, I like Watertown. I had a lot of friends from college who were from there. One of my buddies and his wife moved up there after graduation where he worked for Burroughs Corporation selling computers. They lived in a Lustron house, a prefabricated steel house developed in the post-World War II era in response to the shortage of homes for returning G.I.s by Chicago industrialist and inventor Carl Strandlund. 

From what I remember about the house, everything was metal: the walls, the ceiling, the interior doors, the shelving. It was cool and weird at the same time. I remember visiting them one time and a hailstorm went through Watertown. We had just smoked a joint and, well, the experience was memorable, to say the least. But that was back in my wild and crazy days. But it still made quite an impression.

Ahh, but I digress. A bit.

Besides Watertown being the home of at least one of our state’s former governors, there is also a body of water nearby called Lake Kampeska. I recall that it is fairly sizeable and has some homes, a recreation area, a city park, a campground, a golf course and even a stock car track along its shores.

There was even a settlement called Kampeska City that pre-dated Watertown. But Kampeska City was wiped out by an invading cloud of grasshoppers in 1874, two years before Jefferson, S.D. residents put their faith in The Almighty and planted crosses around their town to kill the grasshopper invasion.

You may or may not know that Watertown and Lake Kampeska are near the source of the Big Sioux River. Really, it is. Actually, The Friends of the Big Sioux River, an organization whose mission is “to protect and restore the Big Sioux River and its watershed, improve the water quality, and educate our community to build a conservation ethic”, narrows down the source of the Big Sioux a bit north of H2Otown. It’s about half an hour north.

“Beginning as a small stream near Summit, South Dakota,” the group’s website states, “the Big Sioux River rises on a low plateau known as the Coteau des Prairies.” Give yourself a big pat on the back and another Attaperson if you knew that! Let’s see what else it says:

 The river continues on, flowing through bountiful farmland, rural communities, and state parks teeming with flora and fauna. After flowing for 419 miles, the Big Sioux River empties into the Missouri River at Sioux City, Iowa.

The scope of a river extends beyond its banks and includes all the communities whose excess water sheds to that river. Though a town may not sit directly on the Big Sioux River, it can still impact the health of the water. Those communities constitute a watershed district.

Many streams, lakes, and rivers feed into the Big Sioux River from portions of South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. Together, these water bodies form the Big Sioux River watershed, draining roughly 9,000 square miles, an area larger than New Jersey. Today, 40% of South Dakota's population lives in the watershed.

How ’bout that! I didn’t know that 40% of South Dakota’s population lives in the Big Sioux’s watershed. That’s quite a bit. But you can see from the description of the watershed by the Friends of the Big Sioux River above, it is part of much more than the Rushmore State. It encompasses all of what we call “Siouxland”, which was a term originally coined by writer Frederic Manfred in 1946.

Siouxland is a vernacular region that encompasses the entire Big Sioux River drainage basin in South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. A vernacular region is a distinctive area revealed by ordinary people’s language, shared history, mutual interests and a common identity. It’s a sense of place that rarely coincides with jurisdictional borders.

Writer Manfred grew up in Doon, Iowa a small town in Lyon County. He used the term in his novel, This is the Year, which he wrote under his birth name of Feike Feikema. Time magazine quoted from the book in a review in March, 1947 introduced the term to its readers by quoting a few sentences from the prologue which contained the word Siouxland. Shortly after that the Sioux City Journal began using the term to describe school sports teams in the area. Then the word came to be used by all sorts of political and business entities, mostly associated with Sioux City, although Sioux Falls is considered one of the two big cities in Siouxland by Manfred in his writings. Using the strict definitions of the author’s in describing this region, I’ll also include towns such as Norfolk, Neb. as well as the town I started with at the top of this page: Watertown, S.D.

Yet you should be aware that we likely will not cover much news in Watertown. However, we did have an article on Norfolk and it’s efforts to revive their downtown and the river that runs through it. But most of the news in the Siouxland Observer focuses on Union County and sometimes Woodbury County, Iowa and occasionally Dakota County, Neb. as it has for the last 12 months. (Happy 1 year anniversery to us!).

Speaking of Union County, you might be aware there is an election going on today. I wanted to point out that the two men (Republicans both) are running for reelection to the South Dakota House of Representatives. Their names are William “Bill” Shorma and Chris Kassin. Of the two I’ve only met Shorma and that was in the hallway outside the Dakota Dunes CID where he was talking to them about golf car use or something like that. I don’t ever recall meeting Kassin.

What I want you to think about these two guys is to look at them through the lens of the June flood in McCook Lake. Remember that? Of course you do. Now recall how our puppy killing governor Kristi Noem was AWOL for much of that disaster and how she was somewhere in the east or southeast (Nashville or Memphis) campaigning for former president Trump and herself. You remember that don’t you? You should. Now remember how she drug her feet getting the disaster application submitted to President Biden. What was it – a month before she got around to applying for the funds for North Sioux City? Yeah, that’s right.

Now remember how Barnyard Barbie refused to call up the SD National Guard to help out with the flood and recovery? She said it was TOO EXPENSIVE. But at the same time Noem had either sent or was contemplating sending the guard to Texas to help out with a questionable immigrant invasion on their border with Mexico. And Texas never paid us back from the previous time, did they?

In 2021, Noem deployed 48 Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border, using $1 million donated by Republican billionaire Willis Johnson, of Tennessee. Noem then tapped South Dakota’s Emergency and Disaster Fund to cover the rest. Although the troops were deployed to assist the state of Texas secure its border, Noem has said she will not ask Texas for reimbursement.

Republican Gov. Noem’s troop deployments to the nation’s southern border now have another cost: $42,000 to settle a lawsuit over a watchdog group’s document request.

The federal government recently paid the money from funds earmarked for the South Dakota National Guard, according to a National Guard spokesman.

Noem got all sorts of bad publicity from her laziness and need to place herself over the needs of the people in North Sioux City and other areas of South Dakota. At the same time, Iowa’s Gov. Kim Reynolds, also a Republican, was able to get FEMA funds to Lyon County flood disaster victims in a matter of days plus she called out the Iowa National Guard while Kristi strutted her butt around Trump campaign stops.

Then, so the rumor goes, Noem threatened the North Sioux City Council that if they didn’t shut down criticism of her lack of action, she was going to drag her feet even more and slow down the FEMA application again. Now I can’t confirm that threat, but I wouldn’t doubt it. And it may explain the blank stares and inaction people that attended city council meetings saw from city councilors after the flood. Maybe they were afraid to say anything that might offend the idiot governor.

Going back to the reelction of Shorma and Kassin, my question is, where were these two so-called public servants after the flood? I heard that they attended the city council meetings but did not offer any problem-solving assistance to straighten things out in Pierre. Voters in North Sioux City need to consider that before supporting the reelection of these two. If they wouldn’t step up to the plate and help out as go-betweens with the administration in Pierre, what good are they to us in this district?

To be fair, I did hear that Rep. Kassin helped out with removing debris after the flood. Good for him. But that’s not where he was needed. He should have been in Pierre knocking on the governor’s and Lt. Governor’s doors facilitating faster funding. Both of these Yayhoos should have been questioning why the Governor wasn’t being pushed to call out the guard. They both could have easily gotten on the phone and called colleagues in the house to ask them for help in pressuring Noem.

I don’t think they deserve to be returned to Pierre after this performance. I suggest you vote for Democrat Ray Ring who has been a representative previously. You can vote for him and him only in the election while leaving the other space blank.

Speaking of blanks, there were plenty of blank looks from the North Sioux City City Councilors at various times during their regular meeting last night. But there were some scuffles between councilors early on, that sort of livened things up.

I got there a few minutes late and the council chambers were packed with angry torch-carrying villagers – most of whom lived in the McCook Lake neighborhood, I think. I was disappointed that I’d missed the rollcall and the loyalty pledge. Maybe next time.

I noticed that Mayor Patti Teel wasn’t there. I hope she’s okay. Maybe she just got tired of listening to Greg Meyer, Lynn Hoffman and Bob Davis and said, “The hell with this noise. I’m staying home and watching the Chiefs and Buccaneers on TV tonight.” Who could blame her?

Councilor Gary Bogenrief was Mayor pro tem or vice mayor or drew the short stick. One of those – anyway, he was in charge. City Councilor Kodi Benson kicked things off by moving to discuss TIFF financing and gave a fairly succinct description of it. He also talked about it being used on the Union Crossing development which set Councilor Soulless Greg Meyer off. They went into a back-and-forth discussion about it before Meyer snipped at Benson, “I suppose you’re a lawyer,” before Bogenrief intervened and interpreted for Meyer that this was a discussion and not a vote.

Not to be outdone, City Councilor Lynn Hoffman reported on this week’s Halloween Trick or Treat event. I was dissapointed that no one asked her to put her report in an email so she could pontificate about that being what is wrong with the world.

Meyer rebounded from his defeat by whining about why he is never able to get things placed on the council’s agenda. He asked how to get items on the agenda. Bogenrief and others reminded him that they have always contacted City Finance Officer Amy Lilly a day or two before the meeting with agenda items – something which Meyer seems to have forgotten. He whined and fused a little more before agreeing to say he had two things he wanted on the next week’s agenda. Everybody then said okee-dokee, Greg.

We got to see a grown man nearly have a temper tantrum at the council meeting. I told you above that there were several scuffles between city councilors, right? Well, this started out as one of those, but after a while it ended up with what we used to call a fuss attack.

It began when the topic of the petition for a new type of gubmint for North Sioux City was discussed. There has been petitions going around the community for several weeks to bring to a vote a change from an alderman, ward-based council to an at-large governing body. This would mean changing from eight aldermen in four wards plus a mayor to a four-commissioner board plus one mayor. There needed to be at least 328 signatures submitted from registered voters on the petitions

Bogenrief announced that the petitions had been submitted last week and there were far more than the required 328 signatures. There had been in fact a little under 600 signatures submitted. Bogenrief announced that the required number of signatures had been met and verified and confirmed. There had been a group of some signatures that had been notorized over in Iowa and they were holding these out for the time being and they weren’t being counted as being part of those that met the required amount. However, that didn’t matter, Bogenrief said, because the petition was considered verified and the election could be scheduled. He said the election would be held Dec. 10, 2024 at the North Sioux City Community Center from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Well, that didn’t set right with City Councilor Bobby McGrumpus, because he began demanding that those extra petitions with signatures that had been notorized in Iowa be counted. His voice began rising, “My signature is on one of those petitions,” he said nearly shouting.

Bogenrief stood his ground and calmly explained to the upset Davis that there were already enough signatures that had been verified so they could hold the election.

But McGrumpus wasn’t hearing any of that. “It’s not right,” he shouted. “I signed the petition and I want my signature COUNTED!”

I looked around the room and could see several of the McCook Lake torch-carriers glancing around nervously. I’m sure they were hoping Davis would shut the hell up. They had their election. The petitions and signatures were verified. I was waiting for ol’ McGrumpus to throw himself on the floor and start kicking his feet and hands and crying unti he got what he wanted.

Bogenrief brought the city finance manager into the discussion. “Amy, all the necessary signatures and petitions have been confirmed, right?” Bogenrief asked.

“They have,” Lilly responded. Then she read the statement about when the election would be held and where the vote would take place. “More notifications will be made according to law,” she added.

Bogenrief tried to explain to Davis that to add more petitions and verify the signatures would take more time. “It may cause us to push the date of the election back, Bob,” he said. Meyer weakly attempted to support Davis by saying that his signature was also on one of the petitions notorized in Iowa, but he apparently had the rational capabilities to understand that there was no need to fight the inclusion of those names.

McGrumpus finally agreed but said he didn’t think it was right and gave a “Harrumpf” or something similar. Bogenrief asked for a vote and the council gave its approval to accept the petitions and to hold the election on Dec. 10.

I stayed at the meeting a while longer but became tired and frustrated with the slowness of progress and the droning on and on of Greg Meyer’s voice. There was still to come the public input at the end of the meeting and I didn’t have patience enough tonight to wait that long. I noticed that people had been gradually leaving the meeting. I thought to myself, “This must be what it’s like at a Trump rally.”

It was already 9:00 p.m. and if I hurried, I might get home in time to watch the last quarter of the Chief’s game.

I wonder whatever happened to political yard signs? I sure haven’t seen many of them this year. Four and eight years back when Trump was running you’d see them all over the place. The same thing for bumper stickers on cars. And flags – whatever happened to those stupid Trump flags flying from the back of pickup trucks? Isn’t he supposed to be focusing on the “Bro Vote”? I mean, what says you’re a member of the Bro Class more than a pickup or SUV with a Trump flag fluttering in the breeze while you drive 80 mph between the Dunes and Sioux City?

I think I’ve only seen one or two of the Bros this campaign season. That was some guy running a stoplight at the corner of Dakota Dunes Blvd. and Sioux Point Road about six weeks ago. He was driving a red (or was that black?) newish Ford Bronco with a Trump flag stuck in the back of his vehicle. He veered in and out of traffic between the Dunes and Sioux City. I drove the speed limit as I took my wife to work. I ended up pulling behind him at the stoplight for downtown. He had a personalized license plate that said “Armed”.

Figures, I thought. Since then I’ve wondered why I don’t see as many Bubbas like that? Are they afraid to publicize their political preferences given the amount of craziness being uttered from the lips of the Orange Jesus? I doubt that they’ve changed their political preferences. But you never know. Maybe they’re undecided right now. Hmmm.

I did see according to the Des Moines Register poll where Iowa may have flipped from Trump to Harris. That would be a shocker. A pleasant one, but a shocker nonetheless. It’s too bad that couldn’t happen in South Dakota, but there’s just too much rural rage and racism floating around here for that to occur, I think. There’s too many people in the Rushmore State afraid of and who loath people with different skin pigmentation color.

I lived in Texas for eight years back in the 80s and early 90s. I thought racism was pretty bad when I first moved there. But when I got to thinking about it, Texas wasn’t much worse than South Dakota where I’d moved from. Now that I’ve moved back and lived here since 1992, I’ve found a lot of South Dakotans, Iowans and Nebraskans don’t appreciate the fact that America is a quilt of many colors. They are just like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. They want America to be a sheet.

Here’s a quote from a writer that I discovered when I moved to Texas. She is funny as hell. I met her once. She’s now deceased, but her words are still true and apply to Siouxland as much as they do in Texas.

Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers – the hardest-working, poorest people in America – are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.

Molly Ivins

To all those Republican women who are disgusted with Trump: Remember, you don’t have to vote for him just because your husband, boyfriend, family is voting for him. It is a secret vote when you go into that voting booth. Nobody should see how you voted. If you are repulsed by that asshole Trump, don’t feel alone. Many women are. Just because you are a registered Republican doesn’t mean you have to vote for him and Vance.

Donald Trump is a convicted felon. He treats women like shit. He is a sexual predator. You know that. He has admitted as much. On TV. He has tried to overturn the vote of the previous presidential election. He failed at that. He tries to cozy up to foreign dictators and admires their ways. He says he will be a dictator on day one of his administration if he wins. He paid a porn star hush money not to tell about the affair she had with him and he was convicted of doing so. He has gone bankrupt numerous times. He is a terrible businessman. He inherited his wealth. He lied a multitude of times when he was in the White House. He did virtually nothing to address the Covid pandemic.

You can either tell others how you voted or you can be noncommittal. Just remember, nobody, but nobody has a right to know how you voted.

Do you like to read? Both my wife and I love to read murder mysteries, but I’ve only read a few true murder mysteries. Normally I’d recommend something at the North Sioux City Library, but a Facebook post from the Sioux City Public Library caught my eye. Here it is.

Join the Sioux City Public Library for Sioux City Reads, a community-based reading initiative where Sioux Cityans are involved every step of the way – from book selection to completing challenges and attending book discussions.

Now through November 30, cast your vote to help select the next Sioux City Reads title at SiouxCityLibrary.org/siouxcityreads. Copies of each book are available for check out at any Sioux City Public Library location.

Vote for one of the following three exciting books:

Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story by Max Marshall – When Max Marshall arrived on the campus of the College of Charleston in 2018, he hoped to investigate a small-time fraternity Xanax trafficking ring. Instead, he found a homicide, several student deaths, and millions of dollars circulating around the Deep South. Behind the pop culture cliches of “Greek life” lies one of the major breeding grounds of American power: 80 percent of Fortune 500 executives, 85 percent of Supreme Court justices, and all but four presidents since 1825 have been fraternity members. With unprecedented immersion, this book takes readers inside that bubble. The result is a true-life story of hubris, status, money, drugs, and murder.

Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers by Frank Figliuzzi – In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his twenty-five-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying cases and interviews the courageous trafficked victims of these crimes – to help others avoid similar fates. 

Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson – In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD’s fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. In 1979, another diary rattled the culture – the posthumous memoir of an alleged teenage Satanist, Jay’s Journal. In reality, Go Ask Alice  and Jay’s Journal came from a serial con artist who betrayed a grieving family, stole a dead boy’s memory, and lied her way to the National Book Awards. 

That’s all for this edition Groovy Guys and Groovy Gals.

Write if you get work.

Your friend,

Gary Dickson