Balaton council owes city clerk apology
On June 9, Balaton held their monthly City Council Meeting. After the regular meeting, they discussed a personnel issue with Kimberly Wall, the City Clerk. Against the repeated urging of the council to keep it a closed meeting, Kim opened the meeting up to the public because she had nothing to hide and she doesn’t regret that decision.
She was informed that there were “several, several, several” reports from community members that she is unprofessional and rude. Three council members called her out and individually said, “Kim, you just need to be more professional.” Kim was absolutely shocked at what they were accusing her of. I find it appalling that she was ambushed at this meeting. Kim asked days prior to the meeting what the personnel meeting was about and did not get an answer from the mayor, or any of the council members.
These supposed allegations are baseless without any merit. The council did not do an investigation on one single allegation, but rather attacked their own city clerk without any proof that any of the supposed allegations held any shred of truth. When Kim asked what the complaints were, they could not, or rather, would not provide Kim with one single example of the “several, several, several” complaints that they have allegedly received.
Kim’s character and reputation have been attacked, called into question, and put under scrutiny because the council did not do their due diligence to find out if any of these supposed allegations are true. I have been in the city office and on the phone with her when community members come in or call, and I have never heard her be anything but kind and courteous to everyone.
If there were “several, several, several” complaints, why wasn’t this brought to Kim’s attention earlier? The council is supposed to be transparent to the community members that they represent. The residents have a right to know what’s going on within their own government; the council trying to hide behind a closed meeting, which is exactly what they tried to do with Kim, isn’t serving the community.
In the interest of transparency, each council member should be asked during the July meeting how many phone calls they have received from unhappy residents, when, and “Was it related to an official notice sent from the City Office?” The mayor and council’s actions are unprofessional. The actions, and/or lack thereof, of the mayor and council members should not be tolerated by anyone.
The Balaton City Council owes Kim a public apology for what they have done. Due to the fact that the meeting was opened up, all of this information will become public after the minutes for the June meeting are approved at the July meeting. It’s my belief that the council wanted to keep that meeting closed for their own interests, not Kim’s. I will be at the July meeting.
LISA CAIN
ESTELLINE, SD
Little big lies
Try to follow Representative Fischbach to get a sense of her work. As any good politician, they highlight accomplishments and leave out failures. HR 01: One Big Beautiful Bill Act was 87 pages long on a Friday and then grew like Pinocchio’s nose to over 1100 pages the following week. This is about the same length as “War and Peace” so it is no surprise that there were many hidden subplots and twists that most people will not catch on a first read. Think “Game of Thrones” on steroids. Not unusual for politics.
What is sad is the partial truths that quietly smile through the entire bill. What is sad and dangerous are the partial truths that are a cancer on all but the very wealthy. A PARTIAL TRUTH or partial lie is more damaging than other lies because it uses the truth to deceive, eventually creating total mistrust of all words and promises. Bait and switch! For instance...
PARTIAL TRUTH: Tariffs are good for the US economy? Tariffs are taxes that fall heavily on the middle and lower economic food chain. A recent email by Rep. Fischbach championed a new tariff agreement with the UK that dropped tariffs from 5% to 3.3%. The UK is only 2% of U.S. imports. We don’t have a trade deficit with the UK. We do have trade deficits with Canada, Mexico and China that are much bigger players but no mention of those.
The trade deal with the UK touted a better deal for farmers with reductions of a couple percent on tariffs for ethanol and meat. The other part of the deal allowed the UK to increase steel and cars exports to the US impacting our steel and auto industry. This tariff change on a tiny small segment of trade will further destabilize UK farmers who are already under pressure.
The limits on import tonnage further reduce the gain for US farmers allowing about 5% of total beef imported to the UK to come from the US. With steel and auto costs up, will that impact your new machinery costs? This may be old news as a current tweet talked of a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum.
PARTIAL TRUTH: Lower taxes for all. Nope. What good are lower taxes if you don’t make enough to qualify for the deductions? One crumb for you and a full meal deal if you’re wealthy making over $460,000 a year. Please also remember that a significant reason for the vomit of money to the top 10% is a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour since 2009. Tax tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy increase your debt, not theirs. Musk says the cuts in the budget are not enough. Easy to say when Musk, the richest person in the world, has already sucked up $38 billion and the drain continues. The current Federal deficit is 28.7 trillion ($85,300 per person). More is spent on interest payments than on Medicare or National Defense. Almost 18% of the federal budget is going to folks who are already rich as a payment for borrowing money. OUCH! With 2,600 pages of tax code, the very wealthy have created ways to not pay their fair share and to benefit from federal deficits too. Sweet! Think Trickle Down Poverty.
Many people dislike taxes. They assume it’s all their money and no one else should have it. They are either stupid or supremely selfish or both. Taxes are the price of freedom from war and disease and hunger. Do you need two houses or six cars or long vacations to exotic places like Mars or should you pay to educate our young with a true picture of rights and responsibilities and the skill to discern the difference? Bob Dylan wrote “You Gotta Serve Somebody.” Will it be your children or the ultrawealthy?
WILLIAM RICHARDS WALNUT GROVE
