It's said that change is the only constant, but South Dakota is stuck, continually revisiting
concerns that really aren't that concerning to most people in our state, while real needs
remain unmet.
Our smartest and brightest leaving for greener pastures.
We can change that.
Welcome to Change Agents and the Power of We.
Welcome to this edition of the Power of We.
We are Change Agents of South Dakota, and my name is Rick Knobe, and I'm the host for
today's get together.
We're going to cover two subject matters that are of interest, top of mind awareness these
days around the Sioux Falls area.
One of them is the sustainability issue.
That's an international issue.
And then also we're going to talk about the upcoming school board election and a group
that's been formed nationally that may not have the best interest of children in education
at heart.
And so that's what we're going to spend some time today.
We're going to start off with the sustainability issue.
Joining us is Kevin Elsing.
He's a member of Change Agents of South Dakota.
He has a huge interest in sustainability issues, and he's kind of our go-to guy in our group
to discuss this.
So Kevin, thank you very much for being here today.
Appreciate it.
Well, thank you for having me.
So back up before we get too far into the weeds here, the mayor put together, for lack
of a better term, a task force to study this, what, two or three years ago?
Yeah, it's been a while.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Okay.
And then recently, this task force was informed that their work was being replaced by the
work that was put together by the mayor and a couple of his staff people.
Am I, is that an accurate statement?
Yeah, yeah, there was a group of people that were brought together to talk about this issue
and to put together a plan.
And basically that plan kind of went out the window.
Okay.
And has, where are we at with, in terms of the, the mayor's got this deal going and then
there's the council has some, in theory, they've got some say in this.
Do we have a sense of where the council's at and when they're going to take some, have
public discussion on this?
Yeah.
Well, first, I guess my understanding is the mayor was somewhat behind this to start with.
And some other interests, maybe we're working with the city council directly and that maybe
had the influence to get this shot down.
Sounds like the issue now is getting pushed out to September timeframe to get voted on.
That's a long time from now.
It is a very long time.
Can you explain to people why this issue is important?
Yeah, well, this is not just a Sioux Falls issue.
It's not an American issue.
It's a global issue.
And I think right now we've, we've gone far enough.
We're starting to see the long-term effects of climate change and all these things start
locally and grow nationally and globally.
And we just have to start.
We've waited too long already, in my opinion.
We just need to get going on it.
Okay.
And by get going, what does that mean to you?
That means we need to be, have actionable plans that we can put in place with targets, with
realistic goals and timelines where we can work toward what we want the world to look
like 10 years, 30 years, 50 years from now.
Are you going to take my car away from me?
My internal combustion engine?
No, I'm not going to take that away from you right away.
But at some point, that's probably what's going to happen.
I've found it interesting over the last couple of years, the number, the major car companies
are now basically going all electric.
And even my Ford F-150 pickup truck, they've got an electric version of that now besides,
I mean, we all heard about the Teslas and the Priuses and some of the hybrids and stuff
like that, but now the major car companies are all going into the electric mode.
Yes, you are absolutely right.
And there's a, there's a reason for that.
Those vehicles actually are better vehicles in the long run than you when you've been
looking at an electric vehicle.
As far as just moving parts goes, there are so many fewer moving parts in an electric
vehicle to break down, maintenance is less.
There's so many advantages there, the power and everything.
It's really good.
Okay, so there's the motor vehicle part of it, but then my understanding is there's construction
issues, you know, how do you build houses that are more energy efficient?
Is that all part of this conversation too?
That is all part of this conversation.
You know, we want to have, we want to make sure that we have standards here in South
Dakota that meet the rest of the U.S. as far as building codes to make sure we're meeting
energy efficient goals that we have here.
All that will save money for each person too.
So this doesn't, it isn't something that will cost you more.
In the long run, it should cost you less because you're going to be spending less for energy
and other things too.
So it's a win-win.
The building code thing, my understanding is that the city of Sioux Falls is, has not
adopted some of the more current building codes that deal with these issues that cities
around us like Fargo and Sioux City and maybe even Rapid City and some other places have
updated their building codes and Sioux Falls apparently has not.
Is that true or is that just a rumor?
That is my understanding that we have chosen to not update those codes here.
Do we know why?
Has anybody given us a rational explanation?
I haven't really heard a good explanation yet as to why.
Okay.
What do you, I know Earth Day is coming up and the people that were working on this sustainability
plan have, are working with other groups and actually forming a coalition rather than just
a committee, a coalition of things.
Do you know what's coming up for them on April 22nd?
Yeah, I believe they have a Earth Day celebration going on.
They're going to be cleaning up the Big Sioux River and then there is a, I can't remember
where the location is, but they're meeting at a location that, that after they do the
river cleanup.
Okay.
And then there'll be a come together kind of a thing.
A come together kind of thing for sure.
We're not going to be hugging trees or anything, are we?
You know, only if you want to.
Okay.
We continue our conversations of the power of we.
I'm Rick Knobe.
This program is put together by Change Agents of South Dakota.
We heard from Kevin Elsing in the first section.
We're talking about sustainability issues and that's another issue we're going to continue
to follow here locally and nationally and internationally.
Also a topic that is getting attention nationally and it's starting to hit Sioux Falls too,
has to do with school boards and school elections.
Joining us now is Pete Travers.
He's a member of Change Agents and Pete has done a little research on a group that has
been formed down in Florida.
That is, its tentacles are reaching out to all over the place, including in Sioux Falls.
Pete, welcome to the program.
Thank you very much, Rick.
So the name of this group that you're concerned about is?
Moms for Liberty.
Well, it sounds very good.
What are they all about?
It sounds very good, but the reality is quite different.
They were formed two years ago in January of 2021 as a 501C4 corporation, ostensibly
concerned with parental rights.
Their founders were three Florida women, including Bridget Ziegler, who is the wife of the chairman
of the Florida Republican Party.
Bridget was the architect of Florida's Don't Say Gay bill and she's a current member of
the Sarasota County School Board, she was reelected in fact in 2022.
While Moms has members and local chapters everywhere in the United States, those members
have no vote and no say in the organization.
Total control is retained by that three member board who has all control of operations and
of their finances.
The organization is in lockstep with the DeSantis cultural agenda, which extends beyond education
per se with connections, some financial, to conservative and fundamentalist organizations
throughout the United States.
Rather than standing for liberty, the organization actively seeks to restrict liberty to only
those ideas and beliefs with which its founding members agree.
Thus it attempts even here in South Dakota to impose their views of what should be taught,
what should be read, and what should be talked about upon our teacher.
And the name of this group again is Moms for Liberty.
The organization's mission is supposedly to empower parents and particularly that minority
of parents that believe that COVID vaccination is a government mind control plot and that
a well-crafted but dishonest history of American exceptionalism is never to be questioned.
They're not concerned with protecting and defending children, but rather with indoctrinating
them in their own belief system.
Were they truly concerned with the education of our children, they would be lobbying legislatures
for means to reduce firearms injury in our schools rather than banning books portraying
the horrors of teenage rape.
This group accepts and end justifies the means moral code.
They call it the warrior culture and are determined to modify the machinery of government to assure
the continued power of those who agree with it.
We brought this issue to this conversation for a couple of reasons.
The Rapid City School Board was taken over last election cycle by parts of this group.
There are seven members on the Rapid City School Board.
Four were elected that are part of this and the Rapid City School Board, the superintendent's
gone.
There's my understanding from my friends that live out there, there's just all kinds
of chaos going on out there right now.
We've got a school board election coming up here where one school board member is up,
one seat is up.
And this Moms for Liberty group, there is a chapter apparently that's been formed here?
There is in Minnehaha County, yes.
Do you have any idea how many members there are?
I do not.
The only member of which we are aware is an individual who's spoken out through the pages
of the Argus Leader and other forums about banning books here in our school system.
I talked with a school board member, a former school board member recently and I asked the
question about whether during her term on the school board, whether they had ever pulled
a book or whatever.
And she said in her time there, they took one book out of the curriculum and but kept
it in the school library.
And that was her only experience and eventually a few years back.
And if you follow the news these days, it seems like every school board in the country
is dealing with this issue.
Well, there are many dealing with the issue.
A school board in Wisconsin recently weighed in on whether or not a certain song could
be done in a school play.
Also just recently, an art teacher who was going to show her class work by Michelangelo,
including Michelangelo's David was told she couldn't do that and had actually violated
school policy for having done so.
It turns out that the mayor of Florence, Italy then invited not only the teacher but the
entire class to come to Florence, Italy and see the real David.
We should extend the invitation in the United States because we've got one of the authorized
replicas of Michelangelo's David here in Sioux Falls downtown.
We do.
And that has not been free of controversy over the 30 plus years or so the statue has
been in our fair city.
So the term bombs for liberty, as you opened up your dialogue on this, was they talk about
parental rights, but it sounds like it's more group control of teachers, students and the
entire educational system.
It is.
Parental rights is simply the sham that they are perpetuating on an audience.
Their concern is not with their real parental rights, the real parental liberty.
If you want to have liberty, you can have it and we'll support it as long as it agrees
with our idea of liberty.
Whatever.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we're moving, it's been around nationally for quite a while, but apparently it's starting
to sprout up here in Sioux Falls.
The reason we brought the topic up is on May 16th, there is a school board election.
There's one seat that's open and we're going to be talking with the candidates for the
board and before when we have our next broadcast, we'll have another broadcast before May 16th
and we'll talk more about this particular group and the candidates that are running
and hopefully inform you, our listeners, a little bit more and a broader sense of what's
at stake here.
So Pete Travers, thank you very much for being here.
Appreciate it.
Kevin Elsing, appreciate your being here today.
Thank you.
This edition of The Power of We brought to you by the Change Agents of South Dakota.
I'm Rick Knobe.
We'll talk again soon.
Thank you.