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Spearfish Oligarchy Needs Stronger Challenger Than Boke

Mayor Jerry Krambeck, Spearfish, South Dakota, 2013
The Oligarch?

Spearfish holds its city election Tuesday. My neighbors have two choices for mayor: three more years of Mayor Jerry Krambeck, who has held the position since 2000, or political newcomer Dana Boke, who says Krambeck runs an oligarchy that she will overthrow with a new regime of managerial listening and collaboration.

Dana Boke, Candidate for Spearfish Mayor, 2013
The Pretender

Always eager to overthrow oligarchy, I have read Dana Boke's campaign website and Facebook page. I listened closely at the Spearfish candidates forum March 27.

Dana Boke is full of crap, and she's not a good crap salesman. I know, because she sounds a lot like me... in eighth grade.

In 1984, the Presidential election had my friends and me spouting some kind of political nonsense (yes, some things never change). Our eighth grade teacher, Cheryl White, indulged us one day and permitted some sort of political speeches during class. One of my friends stood up and recited things he'd heard from his parents and TV about Ronald Reagan. I stood up and preached Quadism.

What the...?!

Oh, Quadism was a new party, a new movement. The Republicans and Democrats were old parties, like an old tree that would snap and topple in the winds of change. But Quadism was a young tree, able to bend and withstand the tempest.

I didn't actually say tempest in Miss White's classroom, but (memo from time-traveling self) I should have. Tempest would have fit the sound, the tone, the rhetorical force I heard echoing in my imagination. I wanted to rouse the crowd through metaphor and familiar memes (another word we didn't know in eighth grade)... because I had no clue what I would do if I were President or Congressman or any kind of practical policymaker.

Neither does Dana Boke, and she's not an eighth grader. She's applying to be mayor of South Dakota's eleventh-largest and first-prettiest (you want to rumble?) city, and when asked to define the most important role of the mayor, she says something about being a "cheerleader of sorts," then struggles to stammer out a vague patchwork of her own campaign slogans:

Good night, Dana! You're applying for a job. It shouldn't be that hard for you to lay out your two-minute understanding of that job. And if you really think the mayor's main role is cheerleader, you'd better discover the key to good cheerleading: enthusiasm!

Boke returns in almost every statement, live and online, to her main selling point: change. I've heard people in Spearfish say they're ready for change, too. But change to what? A bunch of dull management seminar rhetoric? Listening to Dana Boke makes me feel like I'm at a really bad school in-service: she says a bunch of carefully crafted words, but when she gets done, she hasn't really said anything.

None of Boke's public statements have included any examples of the strongarming, the not-listening, the personal agendas, or the oligarchy she says she's fighting. The suggestion that you fight oligarchy by replacing a janitor with a banker is first-blush laughable. Boke could stave off my laughter if she'd name names: tell us who the oligarchs are, what harmful agenda they're pushing, whom they've strongarmed, whom they've favored, and what policy changes you'll make to end that oligarchical favoritism.

But no. The only vaguely specific policy statement Boke has made actually sounds like more oligarchy. Boke says she wants to increase funding to the Spearfish Economic Development Corporation so it can be "proactive" instead of "reactive" (yeesh—more empty management-speak). Boke is a professed fiscal conservative advocating more government spending on crony capitalism... even though Spearfish rocks the socks off other communities that spend much more on economic development.

Dana, I'm from Madison. I know oligarchy. I know the damage oligarchy can do to economic opportunity and local culture. If an oligarchy is harming Spearfish, then by gum, we need to change it. Spearfish neighbors, I urge you to vote for a knowledgeable, forceful leader who can make that change.

Alas, Dana Boke's flat version of my eighth-grade political speech about change shows she's not the leader we oligarchy fighters are looking for.

* * *

Disclaimer: Jerry Krambeck paid me money to build his campaign website. His money does not buy him my opinion on the Madville Times.

37 Comments

  1. grudznick 2013.04.07

    Vote for Jerry Apa.
    He is not a snollygost and will not disappoint.

  2. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.07

    Apa's up in in Lead: Would Spearfish need a Krambeck or a Boke to work/compete with Apaville?

  3. grudznick 2013.04.07

    Young Ms. Boke is very pretty, but Mr. Apa's more elderly scowl will draw businesses to a burgeoning Lead development zone and away from Spearfish where more libbies congregate. Lead and Deadwood can combine to control Lawrence county economies and remember that Spearfish isn't even a county seat. Mr. Apa will have much to say in the next couple of years about your economic futures.

  4. Dana P. 2013.04.08

    uggg. Cory, I wish I could disagree with you, but I can't. As I've bored you with before, Mr Krambeck's style and supposed forward thinking for Spearfish, has done nothing but hurt me personally, as well as many of my fellow neighbors and fellow Spearfish-ians. And it has done quite a bit to favor and profit the close knit group of folks that make the decision - and/or benefit from those decisions.

    So low and behold. Someone decides to challenge Mr Krambeck's ways. How exciting!! yay!! Even throws out very applicable terminology (oligarchy) to try to tell voters why current leadership is wrong and is going to change those ways!! Yay!! But then?? KER-THUD! Gives no facts to back up the claims (and there are many!) and either doesn't have a plan or refuses to give a plan as to how things will be different. It leaves me scratching my head!

    If Ms Boke was interviewing someone for a job at the bank, would this style of interviewing win that person the job? I hope not! How hungry is Ms Boke for this job? It leaves me to wonder. I know I've said this too much probably, but I think her game plan is to "count" on folks that just want change for change sake. Or that don't like Jerry and say, "anybody would be better than him". I guess that could work, but boy howdy, what a gamble! Questions that aren't rude but asking her for explanation on her Facebook page, go unanswered and then quietly disappear. Hmmm, that sounds EXACTLY like Krambeck style, to be quite honest.

    Politics is a contact sport. Krambeck has challenged Boke's voting record in the city (at the forum AND in all of his super-pac commercials on the radio right now), and Boke has an excellent reason for not voting in municipal elections. But she let him get away with that in the forum? And didn't respond to that? And yet, I'm supposed to have confidence that she will have the you-know-what's to stand up to the golden haired developers in this city that are used to getting their way all of the time???

    How does that old saying go??? "If you expect the world to be fair to you because you are being fair, you are fooling yourself. It's like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn't eat him." We'll see if Boke's mamby pamby campaign strategy is successful. Makes me very worried in many ways.

  5. larry kurtz 2013.04.08

    Good eye, Dana. Pioneer Bank, the home town slush fund, and Boke's bank control the resources in much of LawCo.

  6. Dana P. 2013.04.08

    from the island of "it's probably too late now"....

    Former Councilmen Eric Davis wrote an email to Krambeck, who in turn posted it on his facebook page today. In it, Mr Davis claims to not have a clue as to the "oligarchy" description being used (note to Ms Boke - again, it would have been nice to see you give an itemized list of examples to this effect)

    I guess I won't list all of the times that Mr Davis disagreed with decisions done by this city (I've kept all of the articles that cite Mr Davis making public statements disagreeing with TIF's, money expenditures, etc). And I shouldn't mention the witnesses to statements made by Mr Krambeck - pretty much stabbing Mr Davis in the back. And perhaps Mr Davis doesn't quite understand cronyism/oligarchy - hmmm, when Mr Davis left the fish hatchery, voila, his roommate was named as his successor.

    I guess it is really hard to see the light, when you get all wrapped up in the mud and muck of things all of the time..... hmmmm

  7. Mistie Caldwell 2013.04.08

    My comment has nothing to do with the election, but is rather in response to comments about Eric Davis and his successor as director of the Booth Society. Eric's successor was Renae Servaty, not his former roommate. Ms. Servaty had no personal connection to Eric Davis prior to her hiring. I was a board member for the Booth Society at the time and on the selection committee who hired her. This is for clarification purposes only.

  8. Dana P. 2013.04.08

    Thank you for the clarification. That was my mistake in how I worded that. I was not talking about Ms Servaty. There is another director now, and I will just leave it at that, I guess.

    All I was trying to explain is that people who benefit from an unjust system usually fail to see the problems with that system. Case in point!

  9. Dana P. 2013.04.09

    So.... the election has been delayed for one week due to the weather. Will Ms Boke use this one week to increase the voter's knowledge of the oligarchy that exists? Will she use this time to explain to voters why she hadn't voted in a municipal election (which she has a very valid reason, but unfortunately, potential voters don't know why she hasn't)

    Major snowstorm going on right now......a couple of years ago, the voters of the city overwhelmingly voted for snowgates, against the thoughts of Mr Krambeck. Did the city follow the will of the voters?? (hint, hint, Ms Boke)

    One thing for sure with the delay of the election due to the storm. I would bet a cup of coffee that the streets in Spearfish will be better plowed than they have been in years!!!

  10. Les 2013.04.09

    Have you given Ms Boke a call Dana? Maddville is prob not laying on her breakfast table waiting to be read.
    .
    Explain the DC Booth. There is waste and.....?

  11. larry kurtz 2013.04.09

    ...economic development: the hatchery draws more tourists than the Passion Play does.

  12. larry kurtz 2013.04.09

    even though they raise invasive species like rainbow trout there.

  13. Dana P. 2013.04.09

    yeah, I hear ya Les. Although, she has linked "Madville" things to her Facebook page, I'm sure she and/or her team are watching Cory's blog closely. (And so is the Executive Director for Visit Spearfish, as we found out yesterday!)

    I hope she uses this week wisely and is very productive. It can't hurt, that's for sure. I may or may not touch base with her - but for her to use the "O" word in describing current Spearfish leadership - she is well aware of anything I could say to her. She just needs to stop assuming that everyone in the city knows these things. People that are Krambeck supporters will vote for him no matter what. It is the people that may be on the fence, that need to know these details. It is long overdue for her to explain the oligarchy charge. Many things that are going on in this city would blow the pants off of the citizens if they are made aware.

  14. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.09

    So, Dana, you're basically saying that you want Dana Boke to blow people's pants off?

    (Sorry, I'm working with middle schoolers. It rubs off on me.)

  15. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.09

    I agree that Madville Times should be on Boke's breakfast reading list. She could win this election if she took Dana's and my advice and talked specifics instead of dreary, passionless mangement-speak. (By the way, Dana P., when did Boke link my stuff? I didn't see it on her campaign page.)

  16. Dana P. 2013.04.09

    rim-shot, Cory! giggle.....good one!

  17. Dana P. 2013.04.09

    Ms Boke posted a link to "Madville" on her Facebook page. She had posted her blog entitled "True Colors" on her F/B page, and one of her followers asked her if there would be a summary of the forum. She linked your videos in response (dated March 29th, 2013)

  18. Les 2013.04.09

    Oh Lord help us! ;)

  19. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.09

    Les, I invite all candidates to discuss what their opponents' reading of the Madville Times suggests about their intelligence, responsibility, and sanity.

  20. Desarae Biggins 2013.04.12

    To imply that there is an oligarchy in Spearfish is to imply corruption for the good of only a relative few. If one is so dauntless as to make such a claim, one best be able to name specific facts capable of being researched.

  21. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Joe Jorgenson, Ron Junek, Daryl Johnson, Harlan Schmidt...should I go on?

  22. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Jim Benning, Roger Tellinghuisen, Doug Lueders....

  23. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Hamsters USA, Banditos, Sons of Silence....

  24. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Neiman Enterprises, Wharf, Valentine Mining, BLM....

  25. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Bruce Outka, Jim Seward, Sam Kephart, Shurald Swedlund....

  26. Dana P. 2013.04.12

    darn, Larry! You were too quick for me on that! I'll throw Prairie Hills Transit on that oligarchy pile.

    yep, the oligarchy allegation is spot on and can be backed up with evidence. Ms Boke needs to enlighten and educate those that aren't aware of the "corruption for the good of only a few". It is pretty much an open secret....for those willing to look at it with open eyes.

  27. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Blayne Pummel, Rand Williams....

  28. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Danny O'Neill, Danny Green....

  29. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.12

    That's a pretty big oligarchy, Larry. How many other wealthy developers should go on that list? Does Jim Boke make the list?

  30. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Boke came from somewhere else some time ago: he is a veterinarian by trade. Good folks if they weren't shrouded in religious fervor.

  31. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.12

    James Benning? Hey! He helped us build our stage gear for the Spearfish Middle School play! Dang -- now I'm part of the oligarchy.

  32. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Forgot the Dana clan: they're also cult members.

  33. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    Related: Wells Fargo announced record profits today.

  34. larry kurtz 2013.04.12

    My old boss, Paul Miller is still a player.

Comments are closed.