Mayor's face on billboards draws criticism
Mayor Mike Huether is drawing criticism for spotlighting himself on billboards and other advertisements for a new city-funded jobs website.
"It looks like somebody's campaign ad," said Councilor Michelle Erpenbach, who voted in favor of funding the website Tuesday but criticized the ads promoting it.
She supports city-driven workforce recruitment efforts and the website itself, she said, but the marketing strategy behind it is putting the city in a bad light.
"That is the only negative that I have heard about this project, and I've heard it repeatedly," Erpenbach said. "Why is it not pictures of people who live here? Show the diversity. Show the opportunities that are here."
Huether declined to comment.
Huether and the Community Development Department earlier this month unveiled SiouxFallsHasJobs.com, a city-funded website aimed at recruiting workers. The same day the website launched, billboards, kiosks and other advertisements donning the mayor's image went up throughout Sioux Falls, with more ad placement in other cities likely.
The billboards weren't intended to promote Huether and his political career, said Community Development Director Darrin Smith. Rather, using Huether's photograph came down to his synonymy with Sioux Falls, Smith said.
"Very honestly, if there is a better person in any city to introduce people to their city and welcome them, it's the mayor," Smith said. "I would say that about any mayor in America."
Sioux Falls resident Debbie Riter disagrees.
"My first reaction (to the ads) is 'Really?' We have somebody who probably has other political aspirations having billboards all over our community when we could (use) somebody … who needs to hire people," she told the council ahead of its Tuesday night approval of a $39,000 web maintenance contract for SiouxFallsHasJobs.com.
Aside from business owners, millennials and immigrants could serve the website better than using images of the mayor, she said.
"I don't want my taxpayer dollars spent on promoting one person," Riter said. "I want them to promote, really, our community and what we are trying to do with jobs."
When the first round of advertising contracts expire – the city has so far spent $11,500 on promotional tools for the website and another $25,000 is likely before year's end – the marketing strategy should be reworked, Erpenbach said.
"I don't want to throw good money after bad. When it's time to change those billboards … that's when that message needs to be tweaked," she said.
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