COUNTERPOINT: What an email to City Hall showed about how Christine Erickson leads
Guest column by Gregory LaFollette, CPA and former technology executive
In December 2016, I flew back into Sioux Falls on a flight that happened to include a couple of executives who worked in corporate relocation and site selection. As we walked through the concourse, one of them pulled out his phone to call a ride, looked at the screen, then looked at me.
“You don’t have Uber here?”
“No,” I said.
He smiled. “Wow. Do you have electricity?”
He was joking. But the joke landed anyway. At the time, South Dakota was the only state in the country without a ride-share company operating in it. For visitors, business travelers, and companies weighing whether to relocate here, it was a bad look — Sioux Falls was a growing, modern city that happened to be missing something most of the country had long since stopped thinking about.
VIEWPOINT: Life lessons from my dad, Jamie Smith, show he’ll be a great mayor
On June 23, Sioux Falls will choose our next mayor. As both candidates make their pitch to voters, I want to highlight the leadership of the candidate I know best: my father, Jamie Smith.
