In more edge-nattering, Representative Spencer Gosch (R-23/Glenham) last week proposed House Bill 1221, which would spend $750,000 to plop statues of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt on top of our Capitol dome.
This is the cheap, uncreative, and symbolically misdirected Rushmorification of the Capitol that Governor Kristi Noem proposed last summer in the warm glow of her pandering idolatry. But wait: didn’t Noem say private donors were going to pay for those statues? Her “Freedom.SD.Gov” webpage is still up, taking donations from fellow idolaters. Didn’t that fundraising effort bring in enough cash? Or did that cash all go to pay for Noem’s bodyguards and campaign flights? Noem’s statue pledge is sounding a lot like that wall Mexico was supposed to buy for us….
Rep. Gosch is already rethinking HB 1221. Bob Mercer reports that Rep. Gosch brought an amendment to House Appropriations yesterday striking his support for Kristi’s statue boondoggle and instead installing some memorialization of former Representative Bob Glanzer at the new rodeo barn on the State Fairgrounds in Huron. The specific appropriation is gone, reduced from $750K to a placeholder dollar as Gosch and his colleagues try to figure out of they want a statue of Glanzer, a plaque, or maybe some bronzed bovine manure shovels (and really, for a Republican legislator, what could be more appropriate?).
Glanzer managed the State Fair for a time, so some recognition of his service on the Fairgrounds is appropriate. But stamping Glanzer’s name and likeness on the new show barn in Huron could have a greater meaning. Glanzer was one of the first South Dakotans to die of coronavirus last year. The monster beef complex is one of Snow Queen and Rodeo Princess Kristi Noem’s major budget priorities. We would be placing a memorial to a lawmaker felled by the pandemic on a huge building project that symbolizes the priorities of the Governor who ignored and thus worsened that pandemic.
Yeah, that sound like a much better use of state dollars than replicating a tourist attraction and placing four out-of-staters on top of the South Dakota Capitol. Pass that amendment, and let’s see the new beef palace named for Representative Glanzer.
How can they be so out of touch with the people they work for? Such ridiculousness. Teachers want more money, Pierre. Good lord someone needs to knock the stupidness out of them. It’s disgusting.
2 slave owners including a rapist that impregnated his slave mistress lord knows how many times, an Indian killer that hung 30 some Indians in Mankato, and a crazed hunter of wildlife. Lets quit glorifying America’s history and focus on todays urgent problems.
The only one glorifying history is you Jenny by repeatedly focusing on the bad. Good or bad it should be remembered for what it was, history of this country. The horse is dead quit beating it.
Too bad I left South Dakota, they seem to put a boring sculpture up everywhere. I could have livened up the place. My first solo show was in Aberdeen at the art center where I taught figure drawing classes (unpaid) so they also gave me a classroom (unheated) for my studio. Mrs Milton from Vermillion bought one of my drawings at that show, she was John Milton’s wife, some other woman bought all of my little bronze castings. I switched from painting to sculpture in Aberdeen. I worked for Lynn Carlsgaard is the reason and learned bronze casting from him. BUT back to the article, couldn’t they just use the molds from the Rapid City presidents for those guys. Way, way cheaper. They could cast them in shiney aluminium too lighter and cheaper. You know the sculpture in Aberdeen at the post office helped to lead to all the boring sculpture across the nation, but thats another story.
My mom’s family is from Glenham. The town and Walworth County have lots of issues on which Rep. Gosch could and should be focusing his time.
Well….has the State Board for Historic Preservation been consulted about this disfiguring of the Dome???
Would the legislature PLEASE consider using any excess (!) money to help families and unemployed/underemployed/unable-to-pay-rent persons through the coronavirus pandemic. No, Virginia, it’s not over. Are our governor and legislature STILL in stubborn and deadly denial? How long? How many more dead?
Cheesy.
If you want to talk about glorifying smee, maybe Noem needs to quit glorifying her lackluster handling of Covid in SD and quit parading over her Mt Rushmore show last summer to the point she wants a legacy for it with her gaudy statues idea.
Many many South Dakotans are hurting financially and their lives have been turned upside down with Covid and Noem and her Legislature want to mess with the beautiful architecture of the Pierre Capitol. Good grief.
Ms. Friday, I once read there were housing grants that were going unclaimed.
Robin, no, they won’t spend the money to help people.
Grudz, the fact that some grants went unclaimed does not indicate people aren’t in need. They indicate the Governor has done a poor job of targeting and advertising aid to people who need it. She didn’t want to spend that money. She wanted to manufacture a surplus to avoid making hard fiscal decisions.
Amen, Cory. And lest we forget, she also used the Covid funds to pay a great deal of our normal state yearly budget this year! The law enforcement portion of this year’s proposed tax expenditure was paid for from $$$ from the liberal blue states that paid more taxes to federal treasury than S.D. did.. This allowed Noem to gallivant around the nation, posing in front of adoring MAGA crowds last year.
Now, she is posturing to us her skills at producing extra money that we can sock away?! This money should have been spent on expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care act!
Next she’ll join our GOP Congress reps complaining about spending too much red ink.
Sadly, the GOP blames liberals for spending too much, while they refuse to enact laws that allow us voters to know how much they spend!
Housing is only one thing that is needed, grudz, There are a hundred other things that families need to get through a pandemic like we’ve never seen before and people have lost the jobs and the income they had that allowed them to get by. It should go without saying that there are myriad things that families need that the state could help with through these desperate times.