Last updated on 2011.07.17
Turkeys Running Huron?
Huron Police Chief Doug Schmitt exercised his First Amendment rights on Monday by testifying before the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee in support of Senate Bill 156. Chief Schmitt appeared on his own behalf, but he said as a police officer, he is aware of immigration violations at two Huron area meat-packing plants. He said SB 156, which sought to impose legal penalties on employers for hiring illegal immigrants was a good idea.
The committee and the House disagreed. So, apparently, did the Huron City Commission, which has placed its police chief on administrative leave for his public testimony.
Mr. Randazzo takes a break from right-wing parrotry and asks, quite reasonably, why Chief Schmitt is being investigated for telling the truth. "Truth" here is a matter of law and due process. However, it's no secret that the packing plants in Huron have brought huge immigrant populations. It's no secret that big industrial ag operations in South Dakota rely on immigrant laborers, including a fair number of illegal guests, exploitation of whom helps the corporate bottom line. Why would the City of Huron react so strongly to its police chief's statement of such obvious facts?
Chief Schmitt doesn't appear to have broken any laws. Perhaps he broke the Golden Rule—you know, the one about the folks with the gold making the rules... and the water tower:
The city of Huron is formalizing an agreement with Dakota Provisions for construction of a new water tower on the east side of town.
Dakota Provisions is the largest user of water, consuming one million gallons each production day.
The new tower will have three funding partners paying about the same amount. The city, Dakota Provisions and grant funds will each contribute about $500,000 for the tower, to be built starting this spring immediately southwest of the turkey plant. It will service all of the water needs on the east side of the James River [Roger Larsen, "City, Dakota Provisions Agree for New Water Tower," Huron Plainsman, 2011.03.02].
Those grant funds come from a Community Development Block Grant, federal cash administered by Governor Daugaard's Office of Economic Development. Dakota Provisions is Huron's largest employer, supporting one out of thirteen jobs in Beadle County. The Huron City Commission has strongly supported the turkey industry that is propping up the Huron economy. And Doug Schmitt, who appears to own property near a proposed rendering plant site, has spoken up on the record with concerns about holding turkey processors accountable to the health and environmental concerns of the community.
Dots remain to be connected, but suspending a police chief for testifying to state government about the illegal activities in his bailiwick sounds fishy. The City of Huron should be upfront about its reasons for busting Chief Schmitt's chops... or better yet, it should back off and let the chief get back to work enforcing the law.
For evil to flourish , good men must do nothing. We would not want to ruin the "recipe"--now would we? When you don't follow the "cookbook recipe", you get sent to detention.
In other words, keep your mouth shut about what's really going on. Think about the years of illegal immigrants being hired at Wenk's here in Madison. Oh, was I not supposed to mention that?
You even mumble the word 'jobs' and 'money' to the communities who are poor of either, and you have community leaders doing somersaults without seeing the bigger picture. But, you knew that already.
In my lifetime the population of the USA passed 200,000,000 and then we had zero propulation growth and now we have 300,000,000. With much smaller families and that much growth we have had a massive amount of immigrants. We send jobs overseas by the bucketload and import cheap labor. Our ecomomy must be incredible to accomplish this but we have gone to far and have a down economy since we have low wages so the customers do not have enough money to spend. We overdid this generosity and desire to have a lot of poor people to the point that we are not sustaining this anymore. Huge stimiluses do not even get things going anymore.
Some immigrants, and some foriegn trade is great. But all in moderation. Now when they want to teach the kids that we will not follow the laws just to make the rich richer, the kids will learn not to follow the law. What will we do then, Oh, that is now.
C.h ITS PRETTY BAD WHEN SOME ONE TELLS THE TRUTH THEN PUT ON ADMIN LEAVE PRETTY SORBUT YOU THE MAN.
Here are three things we can all do if we are upset with this suspension.
Email the Huron City Mayor and Commissioners at mayor@huronsd.com. Be respectful though!
Attend the Huron City Commission regular meeting on Wednesday, March 16th at 5:30 at 239 Wisconsin Ave SW in Huron to show support for Chief Schmitt.
Send e-mails to Chief Schmitt to express your support for doing the right thing together with your thoughts on the matter. Send them to jason@thebjork.com and the emails will be delivered.
Hey, Linda! What's Schmitt's connection with Bjorklund?
No connection, Cory. Jason just thought this was wrong and wanted Schmitt to know there were people who support him. I read the Argus blog regarding the article on this matter, and 99% of the posts supported Schmitt too.