South DaCola – Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Bunker Ramp Downtown Sioux Falls SF City Council Sioux Falls

Update: Did the Sioux Falls City Council approve Saturday metering in DTSF? Nope.

l3wis April 10, 2025 6Comments

Update: I talked to some attorneys about this and they all disagreed with me on the tax issue. One attorney said it was a ‘government services fee’ basically you are leasing the space from the city so it is a fee. But they all agreed with me that the council really should have approved it in a 1st and 2nd reading so there would have been a public hearing before its implementation.

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When I saw the story yesterday that they were going to start metering on Saturdays I wondered when the city council approved this. Well, they didn’t because they did not have to. According to charter, ordinances 77.080-77.082 gives the parking director and strangely the city engineer the authority to determine when they can charge these fees. A few months ago when they banned monster trucks in DTSF the council did discuss Saturday metering but never gave a timeline or even voted on it, so I was expecting a vote this Spring. But I would argue that it DOES NOT give the director the authority to make this move;

The director of public parking facilities shall establish the hours during the day and night when parking meters or gates must be used and when the time limitations shall be effective,

Notice it says the director can determine the TIMES during a specific day, but it DOES NOT give him the authority to pick the days of collection, which he did here, SATURDAY.

I would encourage an attorney with some free time to go DTSF and park at a meter on a Saturday, receive a ticket then challenge that ticket in court by saying the director didn’t have the authority to pick a NEW day to start metering.

There is also the labor involved. Obviously they had to hire some new people to watch the meters. Was this in the budget? Did the councilors approve that? I doubt it.

This is a MAGA move by our Mayor. You don’t have the authority to start TAXING constituents on a new day without the approval of the policy body which makes taxation decisions, because as Staggers once said, you can call it a ‘parking fee’ but let’s call it what it really is; a ‘tax’.

The parking division also has a revenue issue putting most of their yearly earnings into bond payments for that color fart bunker ramp. The parking division needs more money, and they are coming for yah. I have contended that the city make ALL parking DTSF FREE, 24/7 except meters on Phillips, I would have them running non-stop, 7 days a week, and I would charge $5.00 an hour. If you want people coming DTSF to shop, may I suggest more FREE parking in ramps.

Downtown Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Washington Pavilion

The Pavilion roof may be in trouble?

l3wis April 9, 2025 2Comments

I told you a few weeks ago that I found out another contractor was putting the city in a bind. The city owns the Pavilion so we are responsible financially for any building upgrades, and the Pavilion takes millions each year in maintenance costs from the entertainment tax. Replacing the thingies on the roof cost us, ALOT! So the ‘rumor’ is that while replacing the ‘thingies’ they tore up the rubber roof (you really should not walk on them, let alone carry equipment and materials across it.) Not sure what the city is doing to get relief, but if they had a half a brain they would threaten a lawsuit to get the money. I was told that the repairs will cost over $1 Million. Another city project, another bad contractor. I thought we did RFP’s so we could select the best contractor? And where were the city building inspectors during this process? Were they not checking on the progress? And if so, couldn’t they see the roof damage? Someone told me once, “The city building inspectors are afraid of ladders . . . and the outdoors.”

1st Amendment Curt Soehl Downtown Sioux Falls Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Chair doesn’t like being yelled at

l3wis April 9, 2025 4Comments

Curtist the Blurtist had a plan last night. He pulled an item from the consent agenda. The city was allocating $150K for two new ambassadors for DTSF. While I think it is awesome DTSF is creating jobs, I doubt the employees are making $75K each for the summer, but as DTSF says they need money for ‘training’. LOL. Why did Curt pull the item? Because he thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about the great thing these ambassadors are doing. Well, he was wrong. While our country is going into a tailspin because of a very stupid person, constituents are NOT happy, and they certainly won’t be happy about the city spending more money on the transient issue by spending more money NOT ON THEM!

So some constituents weighed in, and it wasn’t pretty. While they were certainly not friendly in their testimonies, they weren’t wrong. After the trip to the woodshed, Curt was unhappy so he said something like, “I didn’t know we were going to get yelled at . . .” First off, Curt, that is really your main job, listening to constituent complaints, and secondly if you want to POP off at constituents during a meeting you are VIOLATING a rule MMM put in place, NO CONSTITUENT INTERACTION WHILE THEY ARE AT THE PODIUM. So Curt, if you want to change the rules, which I am ALL for, to allow councilors to interact with constituents during public input, DO IT! But until that rule change is made I suggest you such your pie hole and take it like a big kid, or better yet RESIGN. Your disdain for public engagement is getting old, like you (as you pointed out in the meeting.)

Uncategorized

Antiques Roadshow

l3wis April 8, 2025 8Comments

My friend Joy, featured in this episode (FF: 16:00) showed me this collection when she lived in Sioux Falls. I told her to never sell it but to pass it onto her daughter. Never thought signatures would be worth that much. When her and her husband retired they moved to Colorado. They collect all kinds of cool stuff.

Curt Soehl Elections Mayor TenHaken Paul Ten Haken Sioux Falls

It’s going to get a lot more expensive to run for local office

l3wis April 8, 2025 3Comments

I didn’t say that, our mayor did. A few weeks back there was an article in one of the local circle jerk publications where they interviewed Curtis the Blurtist and Poops about the change in local elections (I support a November election though the council may be leaning towards June, which is bad because of the partisanship). Since most of the council is Republican I have no doubt that a majority including the mayor support a June election because it is mostly attended by Republicans so if they do just a little bit of research they will figure out who the conservative Republican is running for council and pick them based solely on that. If we move council elections to June, we will never have an indy or dem on the council again. And that was the ultimate goal of the legislature by doing this. Let’s just say they are gerrymandering using an election instead of a district.

But I want to talk about a quote in the article by Poops. He basically said that local elections will get more expensive when they have to compete with campaign advertising space with legislative candidates, etc. He isn’t wrong, it will get more expensive, but guess who started us down this ‘expensive’ road? TenHaken. This is a guy who handpicked council candidates then created his own PAC so he could funnel thousands of dollars towards his preferred puppet candidates and now he questions the cost of running in a local race. LMFAO! You are part of the problem PAUL! Not to mention this is a guy who attained a large part of his personal wealth designing websites for campaigns and getting his DSU ‘Doxxing Team’ on it. So now you are complaining about MONEY in politics?! Money is what got you and your puppet show elected, because it certainly wasn’t leadership skills.

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