Joe P. Kirby is up in arms, and for good reason, the city council wants to tinker with the Home Rule charter that he cooked up in the 90’s, a form of government that has benefitted Joe and his wealthy buddy contractors over the years because of it’s lack of checks and balances and oversight;
On Monday, the City Council will vote whether to expand its duties to include review of city contracts. I fear that this level of involvement by the council is a step in the wrong direction. Our current form of government is fundamentally sound and will continue to work well, if we don’t change it into something it was not intended to be.
In 1993, I was part of a group that wanted a more efficient form of city government in Sioux Falls to replace the City Commission form, which had become largely dysfunctional.
And it is functioning so well right now?! The SD Supreme Court has ruled against the city on several occasions, and there is more to come on the unconstitutionality of some of the home rule charter practices. Is this the definition of a functioning government, one that is being challenged in court on a regular basis? The main reason the Home Rule charter was cooked up by uber-wealthy Joe Kirby is so that he and his rich buddies would have more centralized control of city government. Sounds ludicrous? Think about it? It’s easier to lobby just one person instead of nine when you need to slip in a project under the radar. Why else would he blatantly lie about the approval process;
No one thought that the City Council would be involved in such mundane operational details as the approval of contracts. Such time-consuming involvement would expand the time required to be a city councilor and make the position not viable for many citizens.
Joe fails to mention a few SMALL details. 1) the contracts would be listed in the consent agenda and approved all at once just like the malt beverage licenses and unless there was a controversial contract that had to be pulled out – this time-consuming task would take about 5 minutes at each meeting. 2) Joe also fails to mention that St. Paul and Omaha have a similiar form of city government, and in those cities the city council approves most of the contracts.
Just admit it Joe, the normal citizen will be more informed about which of your buddies are getting contracts, for what and how much, during a public forum, and more then just one person in our city government will be deciding who gets those contracts. Not sure if this will pass or not after all the shananigans that took place with the termination of Debra Owen. BUT . . .
This is a good thing for Joe-Six Pack but not for Joe-Greenbacks.
He should also cry class warfare.
When the research on this subject was presented in committee to the Council members………..
what stood out to me was that Sioux Falls is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to how city contracts are approved.
It appeared that most cities already are operating in the way that is being proposed……..which makes you wonder why there is so much “push-back” from the Mayor and his “team”.
Let’s hope that the Councilors demonstrate some “backbone” tomorrow night by voting in favor of this ordinance!!!!
scott- He wouldn’t dare, it would only expose why they want to keep these contracts in the limelight. I was surprised Joe didn’t dig up some regular folk to submit his letter . . . oh, that’s right, because they support the change.
cr – you are exactly right. I know that when Debra was researching this issue she found the same thing, funny how she was dismissed right before this vote.
Wow, I did not know this. This is almost as bad as what county judges and other bar card holders are up to.
No doubt contracts are rigged. Outside bidders will not bid because the city attorney uses code 2-66 to not pay them. They cannot appeal into court. You must be an insider. There’s no competitive bid process. Huether let design and contracts on the Events Center without bids before there was a vote or even a location. Heil Huether.
‘rigged’ is a pretty strong word, but there are certainly favors going on. Two examples in the past are ‘Phillips to the Falls’ and the Pavilion window replacement bid. Ironically if the Pav wouldn’t have screwed up on the labor estimate, the public and the council would have never heard about how much one contractor was going to overcharge us. It scares the shit out of people like Kirby that each week the public will get to see in a public forum just who is getting awarded contracts for that week. This isn’t about stealing power from the mayor, this is about checks and balances and letting the sunshine in, something, apparently Mr. Kirby doesn’t like to much. Thank gawd his co-author of the home rule charter, Bill Peterson never became mayor.