Sioux Falls city council central district candidate Stehly puts out her first mailer yesterday
l3wis 
2010
Happy St. Patty’s
I will have to agree, St. Patty’s is my favorite holiday. Number one, everything is green (my favorite color). It celebrates drinking and I get to go to the Touch of Europe and enjoy real cornbeef and cabbage. Here’s to my favorite Irish band, the Pogues;
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrBLqp-s__o[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVUZuVZWHkk&feature=related[/youtube]
Michael Jones, clear choice for Sioux Falls city council At-Large ‘B’
After watching the interview with Jones and his challenger that the Gargoyle Leader did the other day, it was pretty clear to me who is the most qualified to be the next At-Large city councilor; Michael Jones.
Michael Jones touched on how our city council ‘doesn’t listen to citizens’ during the public input. He used the Event Center vote meeting as an example. He was disappointed that Knudson was indignant about the criticism that the public ‘does not trust them.’ He says the councilors need to ask more questions of these citizens. “We need to know why these people don’t trust city government, we need to ask those questions.”
As for the Events Center, Michael takes the Staggers/Huether approach and says it can be paid for without raising taxes. He also touches on something else; He doesn’t think the 3rd penny would go away after 3 years, he said, citizens are concerned it would just ‘morph into something else’ and he also questioned the ’50 million dollar impact’ on the city. He asks, “Will that impact lower taxes for the common citizen?” His challenger, who sat on two task forces still seems to think the 3rd penny is the best way.
Jones supports snowgates and says they are worth trying out. He also says we need to focus on fixing streets more then building new streets. “Not all new development is good development.” He believes we need to get our infrastructure up to par before we develop more.
“When I look at Quality of Life issues, I’m a low cost high return kinda guys.” He believes that the city should let the private sector pay for more of the quality of life projects, and have them be more involved. He thinks we need an indoor public pool, but felt the last one that was proposed was poorly planned.
Jones thinks the city council needs to be more involved with the decision making process, and needs to be better checks and balances. His challenger kind of thinks councilors should just follow the mayor’s lead and thinks citizens need to ‘listen more’ to city government’. No surprise here, he has often had the elitist attitude that ‘he knows best, just trust him.’ We have had enough elitists sitting on the council, thanks, but no thanks.
Jones thinks that a full-time press secretary would be a good idea to better inform the public.
Jones thinks there needs to be better traffic flow downtown and parking.
He says that code enforcement needs to more customer service oriented and less confrontational. He also believes the city dump should be less expensive for private property owners. He also thinks the city should work with citizens to solve problems.
One thing I noticed the most in the interview was Jones’ demeaner. He seems to be a good listener and has a very citizen friendly attitude. His challenger, as a monopoly business owner in Sioux Falls, has a ‘government knows best’ attitude, and a less friendly customer service friendly attitude.
Jones is the best choice, hands down.
Funny picture of the day; Munson filling potholes
Stormland TV News (the propaganda wing of Sioux Falls city hall) did this story about Dave filling potholes. Shouldn’t surprise anyone that Dave is pretty handy with the shovel 🙂 His voicemail must be full of angry messages from citizens. There was a street downtown by Sunshine grocery store that I couldn’t even drive over 4 MPH on because it was so littered with potholes. It looked like the road to the Baghdad airport. Ironically that street has looked like that for years, but hey, blame one snowstorm and one rainstorm for the problem. Hey, we can’t fix the streets, the monkeys at the zoo need shiny new shitters.
Sioux Falls Mayoral candidate Pat Costello gets questions from the Gargoyle Leader’s ED board today
I followed this LIVE. Here are my observations;
• Pat is hell bent on revisiting the sales tax next year to pay for the events center, he blames the governor for the bill not passing, quote; “The governor killed the bill.” Mind you, it never even made it out of committee, it never even got voted on or saw the governor’s desk. He still says that a BB & B tax couldn’t pay for the events center. Boloney. It could, it would just take longer.
• Pat also thinks a rec center needs to be built for indoor swimming and hockey. He does admit that the SFHA is pursuing a private facility. So, Pat, what’s the point of a rec center?
• He talks about the healthcare industry and attracting workers. What he leaves out is that people in the healthcare industry in Sioux Falls are some of the lowest paid in the nation. My neighbor got a job in Tacoma, Washington last year that pays DOUBLE of what she was making here, doing the same job as a nurse. Another friend who recently moved out of state to be a nurse used to work for a private surgeon and also left for money reasons. How do we attract people to Sioux Falls? Pay better wages, even to those who make croutons.
• Pat talks about the city budget. He admits he knew about the recession in late 2008, yet ironically voted for bonds for things we did not need, like monkey crappers and football fields. If you ‘know’ we are in a recession, why do you continue to vote for fee increases and bonds we don’t need?
• The ED board asks how fiscally conservative Pat is, and they can’t resist to take a potshot at Kermit, one member says, “Are you like Kermit who thinks we should only spend money on streets and sidewalks.” What a crock. Kermit’s stand is not that, and the AL continues to parrot this crap. Kermit just believes in the value of tax dollars and thinks it should be spent on services to citizens like snowgates and tree trimmming and parks. I hope Kermit goes in there and hands them their ass on the topic.
• Pat blames low voter turnout for why the rec center vote failed (13%?) He also believes that the indoor pool would have passed to if the citizens were more informed. Really? The Rec center people and the indoor pool people spent quite a bit of money ‘informing the public.’ While the other side used only grassroots efforts. People knew it was a boondoggle, that is why they got voted down. Funny, he doesn’t bring up the fact that most of the council and mayor were voted into office by low voter turnout. He also fails to mention that Kermit HAD NO CHALLENGERS IN his last bid.
• He thinks neighborhood revitalization would be better if we invested in better street lighing and police presence. Try fixing the streets and sidewalks in these neighborhoods. They are in awful shape. Try deregualtion for people who are fixing up older homes. Pat admits they give TIF’s to downtown businesses but not to people who fix up these homes (which I think would be a brilliant way to spark revitalization). He of course doesn’t endorse that idea and kind of trails off talking about home loans or something.
• He admits that the city directors give less information now then they did when he took office in 2006. And says that is a bad thing. But doesn’t offer a plan to fix it. Just says they do a good job.
• Pat talks about customer service to citizens and says that there is room for improvement and says we need to inform city employees who pays their wages; citizens. I couldn’t agree more.
• They ask Pat about replacing any of the city directors. He kinda dances around the question and doesn’t say either way if there will be replacements.
• They ask Pat about campaign finances and admits he is NOT SELF FINANCING his campaign. He is asked if all of the money in his war chest is a turnoff to voters. He claims he has gotten small donations and a ‘FEW $1,000 checks’ BAHAHAHAHA. Actually in his first financial report, he received over forty $1,000 checks. Whatever Pat, you have had some the richest, most influential people and special interests donate to your campaign. You are being bought, and you know it.
• Pat thinks we need to develop more, but should have “planned orderly growth” and shouldn’t let developers build their own lift stations because the city would not be able to handle the capacity. What is wrong with allowing developers to build their own infrastructure as long as the city knows about it? Seriously? Kinda sounds like the city has had an iron fist on development in this town, and it is time to loosen that grip and push for some deregulation so that tax payers are not always footing the bill for these new developments. If developers want to pay for it – let them!