I was never politically involved at the local level until fall of 2021. I voted when I needed to vote and that was basically it. However, after the circus of 2020 and discovering how my city mayor and council didn’t care about how the end of year budget amount was a million off from the beginning amount for the new year after it was brought up by one councilman, I realized I had more power in hopefully bringing this to light more than any councilman could when it came to informing the public of how those we trust to manage our tax dollars wisely and prudently could care less, which I discovered first hand when I brought my concerns forward at a legal finance meeting and all I got was excuses from our finance officer at the time and our mayor made excuses for her, stroked my ego and that was that. Our mayor had no plans whatsoever to address this problem and a big symptom of a serious lack of oversight and accountability in our finance office.
When I went public with my experience and my concern with my fellow taxpayers, I had numerous people tell me their own stories in private of their dealing with our local government and how they were too afraid to go public with it because of fear of retaliation by our government by hurting their reputation, hurting their business, losing their job, etc. I was shocked because all I could think of was: don’t we have a Constitution and rights to protect us from JUST THAT: fear of punishment by our government for speaking out about it? Yet these people refused to break their silence beyond what they shared with me.
This pushed me to “show” rather than “tell.” I knew their fears of retaliation were sadly very well-founded, and I knew that I had a lot of power because I didn’t have a job or own a business. I was a stay-at-home mom who homeschooled my kids…I was a nobody in society, (which some citizens who deeply adore our local government love to remind me in various ways) yet I was extremely powerful because of my lowly position…how ironic! So I exercised my Constitutional rights by attending meetings and making public comments that didn’t stroke egos. I focused on being direct and honest and not being afraid of their reactions and doing simply what our Constitution exists for us to do: the ability to hold our government accountable all to simply show my fellow citizens how I exercised my rights and I’m still here… and the results were interesting to say the least!
These days, I built a website to house all the information that I want to have on hand as a taxpayer looking for such info all in one place (www.govwatchsd.org). I also started a Rumble channel (Government Watch South Dakota: https://rumble.com/c/c-2310812
It’s not been an easy road in the least, but what keeps me going every day is being able to give people a chance to be heard in a day and age when our own government and those loyal to the government no matter what (and at any cost) work harder at silencing, gaslighting, avoiding and demonizing the very people who fund them or those who dare to run for a seat that they had plans for with their own preferred candidate. It hurts to see how many of my fellow Americans don’t realize how powerful they are and are terrified to use their voice that God gave them and that the Constitution protects. My hope is that by God’s grace and intervention, more people in America will realize the power they have, stand up and use it! We have so many good and amazing people in South Dakota and I know once the majority of us stand up, speak up and get involved, we will be unstoppable.
