I just magically appeared after a little rain and ice.
This should come as no surprise that our mayor, or any mayor of Sioux Falls for that matter (cough . . . Munson . . . cough), just does things without consulting the council, well, because he can. The Home Rule charter pretty much gives absolute power to the mayor. But as we have been finding out more and more of this power has been found unconstitutional. So does our new council have the guts to dismantle the charter or will it be in the hands of the people? Comments from at least one of the council members is encouraging, but I am not going to hold my breath;
There wasn’t a mayoral candidate in all of Sioux Falls who didn’t have a thing or two to say about potholes.
And after securing victory, one of the first steps Mayor Mike Huether took was to redirect $2.6 million to the war on crumbling streets. That money piggybacked on former Mayor Dave Munson’s redoubling of efforts on street repair in March.
But the additional money didn’t materialize out of thin air, and it will come at a cost to other projects. About $1.4 million of the additional money will come from the city’s arterial street expansion program, meaning that some projects, including work at major intersections, will be put off.
Huether made the decision unilaterally, without consulting the council. He has the authority to do it, but City Council Chairman Greg Jamison said it would have been nice to get a heads up, especially for councilors who had projects in their districts delayed because of the switch in funding.
“I just felt like, out of courtesy, he could have brought us in,” Jamison said.
While I agree our potholes should be fixed pronto, I think the council should have been a part of the decision. Like I said above, these kind of decisions will continue unless we tear down the Home Rule Charter. Case in point;
Huether and four new councilors were not around when the council fought a bruising battle over arterial streets. Faced with an $85 million backlog, a split council in 2008 voted to increase the city’s second-penny sales tax and development fees for more work on arterial streets.
And who made the final passing vote on this debacle that has FORCED taxpayers to pay their fair share but not the developers? Mayor Munson. But even more troubling, some developers still are blaming the weather;
Chuck Point, a vice president at Ronning Cos., was among the developers who pushed for more money for arterial streets. He said he’s not worried about diverting some money from arterial streets to make repairs – for now.
“I can’t fault him for it,” Point said of Huether’s decision to divert funding from arterial roads. “If you drive around Sioux Falls, you saw it. What I get frustrated about is people blaming the wrong thing. It was the weather.“
Bullshit!
While the weather did make the potholes literally explode, I find it hard to believe that this happened overnight. These potholes have been festering for years. Like I have said in the past, I have ridden my bike on the streets of this town for years, they were in bad shape to begin with, and if you just ignore them, they will only get worse, which happened. The city, the past mayor and council ignored keeping up with infrastructure during good economic times. We had record sales tax revenue and we squandered it, now we are scrambling to fix something we have no money for. We missed the boat to literally put money away for a RAINY DAY, now we have to pay the piper, and that means delaying new projects.
This new mayor and council better come to a quick realization that prioritizing should be their number one concern.