Silence is Not Golden

I’m totally amazed at the inner workings of the county government, especially the county commissioners. In the normal process of running a government, the commissioners had a ‘public hearing’ on the provisional budget. The announcement in the paper said that anyone could be heard and an appropriate response would be given from the commissioners about your concerns.
I went to the budget hearing on the 7th of September and asked why the commissioner’s budget was $209,000.00 and didn’t receive a response. I asked several more questions and was met with the same answer. Total silence. I asked how a budget could be prepared if they didn’t know the expected income for the county the next year. I asked if the budget was increased from last year or was there a budget cut. Then Ross Jordan and Doyle Karpen said that this was an input session only and no response was required. This was my opportunity to ‘suggest’ changes etc for the upcoming year, not for this to be a question and answer period. If I had specific concerns about the budget I could contact the county auditor and she would provide me with answers.
Today was the day to pass the final budget and when I went to the meeting I gave my input during the ‘public input’ session of the meeting and read verbatim the announcement in the paper specifically that a full and complete discussion of all purposes, objectives, items, schedules, appropriations, estimates, amounts and matters set forth and contained in the Provisional Budget. I was met with total silence. So I said I was either being stonewalled, they didn’t understand my questions, or they were lying to me. Again there was total silence. I said that the county auditor was not the person to go to for an answer to these questions. She does not have a vote and that the commissioners and responsible and should answer the questions. Total Silence! I was then thanked by the commissioner and that my time (3 minutes) was up. Still no answers nor and inclination that there would be answers forthcoming. Is this how county government is run? This should really be taken seriously by the people of this county and demand answers, unless of course nobody really cares where their tax dollars are going.

The Governor's Fund

does anyone know what the state Governor's fund is? i have been doing some checking and this is a fund that individuals or corporations can contribute to which the governor may or may not distribute at his convenience. the strange thing about this fund is that those who contribute to it and the amounts are not part of public record. another this is that nobody except the governor knows how much is in it AND he gets to take it with him when he leaves office. like i said before the governor may use it at his discretion for any project and these funds are not accountable. i wonder who has contributed to this fund and how much money is in there? anyone want to guess?????

Hyperion is stalling

i had an interesting conversation today and came to the conclusion that Hyperion may in fact may be stalling.

think about this for a minute. when Hyperion was granted the air permit back in August of 2009 they were given 18 months to begin construction or they would have to reapply for their permit. this means that construction must begin in the February/March 2011 timeframe.

now Hyperion is having getting venture capital or they would have started construction on the refinery. they can't get investors, and are running out of time, so what better way to stall this than to have the air permit changed. Hyperion offered, let me say this again, offered to refine and redo the air permit because of the change in standards by the EPA on air quality/pollution. by doing this the court case is put on hold and the deadline for beginning the construction on the refinery is put on hold which allows more time for Hyperion to find financial backing. Why else would this happen. this and the fact that they got everyone who had options to extend them for three years. i wonder what is going to happen next that will cause Hyperion to want to delay this project. Stay Tuned for further adventures of Hyperion and the poor souls of Union County.

land war

Land War
An interesting situation is developing that I hadn’t thought of before concerning the HEC. Bernard Ofstehag just sold 140 or 160 acres to Dakota Eastern for $4280 an acre. This presents a situation that could really get ugly. When Hyperion said they were going to start buying property on the fringes of the HEC I thought somebody was misquoted. Why would Hyperion buy land that they have released options on unless some new developments have shown up? This would give impetus for other speculators to start buying up land and I’ll be damned if it isn’t happening. Wonder where this is headed?

dangling the carrot

I often wonder why it is that if one dangles a carrot in front of the donkey it will continue to walk after it, pursuing it until one reaches its destination, then feeds the donkey the carrot for a job it would have done anyway. I guess this is an allegory of why if Hyperion dangles the carrot (economic prosperity) in front of people in the Siouxland Area they continue to chase it in hopes of landing a job that is one of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs one could have, or will attain riches beyond their wildest imagination.
Hyperion has renewed options on land in Union County taunting people with promises it has no intentions of fulfilling. If people sell their land to Hyperion they will be able to retire to a life of comfort and luxury. Bull! Granted they are paying people a stipend each year (which comes off the purchase price by the way) to secure the richest farmland in the state of South Dakota. Hyperion has no plausible possibility of building a refinery, much less a ‘green’ refinery; a state of the art refinery; even a remote possibility of a refinery, yet people continue to hope against hope that this will happen.
If Hyperion did have the money, which I doubt, they don’t have the skills or expertise to continue this folly. Oh, I forgot the most important aspect of this trip to Disneyland. OIL – or a pipeline to carry the oil, or the financial backing to build this messiah. It is promising the moon, and can’t afford a trip to Florida.
I do believe this; the land is worth considerably more than the $4,000 or $5,000 it was optioned for. I’m confident it could be sold for $6,000 to $7,000 easily right now today. So what is all the fuss about? Hyperion has tied up these people’s land for another 6 years. 3 one year extensions with the option for 3 additional one year extensions. This just doesn’t make any sense.