For Immediate Release: Wednesday, December 4, 2013
“$550,000 was stolen from South Dakota taxpayers, and neither Attorney General Marty Jackley nor Governor Dennis Daugaard want to get to the bottom of this.“Why?
“It was our money that the Rounds-Daugaard administration granted, and it was the terms of a state grant that were broken. How could Jackley and Daugaard lack the curiosity to find out who did this and how they did it? The Aberdeen American News editorial board is right – we must get to the bottom of this now. That’s why I’m reiterating my call for Jackley to step aside andallow a special prosecutor to investigate the financial misconduct at the Governors Office of Economic Development.”
The Brown County Commission and the Aberdeen City Council should join an Aberdeen man in demanding answers from state government on missing Future Fund grant money.
Resident Duane Riedel presented 176 signatures to commissioners Tuesday asking for a resolution that would compel Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Attorney General Marty Jackley to find out what happened to $550,000 of grant money meant to go to Northern Beef Packers that was instead diverted elsewhere.
Jackley had previously said it was up to the federal government to investigate, as the missing Future Fund money is part of the ongoing federal EB-5 investigation.
That doesn’t sit right with Riedel, or with us. It shouldn’t sit right with local elected officials, either.
We would hardly recommend local lawmakers waste their time on resolutions with no teeth that go nowhere. In this extraordinary case, we feel it is the duty of county and city officials to state, in writing, that we are unsatisfied by the lack of oversight into Future Funds, and the lack of interest in finding out what happened to the money.
Our leaders in Pierre need to know this is important to constituents.
At the same time, the local resolutions can also endorse the concept of Rep. Kathy Tyler, D-Big Stone City, of an independent forensic audit into the state’s use of EB-5.
