I’ll get to the forum in moment, but I first want to share a few tidbits before the event started.
During Monday night’s council meeting (Item 35, FF 1:13), councilor Anderson chastised Erpenbach for not notifying the rest of the council about putting the Tuesday meeting move back on the agenda. In no way did I think Anderson was out of order, and if anything, I thought Erpenbach was on her ‘high horse’ about the topic. I guess after the meeting, Sue and Michelle jumped Anderson and told him he was being ‘mean’ to Michelle during the meeting. Here’s the deal, Michelle, 2nd in leadership on the SF city council is much like 2nd chair in middle-school band. You have no authority to do whatever you want to without consulting the rest of the council.
And now to the River Ramp demolition. There was a press conference (imagine that) to announce the demolition yesterday. Kermit was in attendance. Huether of course had to give a speech about the great progress of DT development, well, right at the end of his speech, he looks at Kermit and says ” . . . and Mr. Staggers we did nothing illegal.”
Huh?
(The next paragraph was edited 3/24)
I figured it had to do with the termination of Debra Owen, but Kermit was puzzled why Mike addressed him about it. Who knows what he was talking about. I guess from now on we must assume everything Mike does is possibly illegal?
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CVB FORUM
Karsky makes his normal one line statements that mean nothing, “I LOVE SIOUX FALLS!” “Bob Litz is a great guy.” “I have a good handle on what’s going on.”
Anderson gave high marks to the SFFD and PD. Kenny also talked about recently visiting his uncle in Detroit, and what a sad city it has become.
Lyndsay DeMatteo calls herself a Christian who is ‘VERY’ Conservative. She supported the new EC, is against regulating businesses (in reference to the garbage haulers) and is against moving the RR switching yard.
Cory B. told us he was separated from his wife (but not divorced) is a disabled Marine vet (who fell off a building). He thinks SF city government is becoming intrusive and in his final statement he told the audience he was ‘Pissed Off’ at the city, but wants to promote it anyway. Huh?
Knudson got out her pom-pons and told us she wants to be the ‘Cheerleader of Sioux Falls’. She said the Events Center should have been built 11 years ago, and supports any quality of life project that comes up. She said she wants to keep Sioux Falls ‘GROWING’ (and apparently in debt for eternity).
Staggers started by touting his political experience as a teacher and politician and referenced the recent firing of Debra Owen (in which Karsky snickered and shook his head) and how she got caught up in the ‘political games’ and he would be there to help sort these matters out. Kermit also said he wants to see that the EC gets built within budget, and he would watch the transfer of funds from other departments closely. He also wants the EC to be profitable and NOT subsidized by the taxpayers. In his final statement, Kermit said something he has said a 1,000 times before, but I noticed he was the only candidate to even mention it (besides Vanderlinden) “Citizens and the people are the most important aspect of a city.” (not quality of life projects and entertainment).
Kyle Vanderlinden told the audience he was only 26 (youngest candidate running) but that more young people should get involved in local government. He also talked about putting citizen needs above special interests. He said that the city has cut infrastructure projects by 23% over the past years and transferred that money into economic development instead. He said he wants to reverse that. He also brought up the Owen firing and how people need to trust government again.
(Graphic, courtesy of Vanderlinden)
Ysbrand and Jamison were also in attendance.
BTW, this is from all of my notes, Ellis was sitting next to me, and I leaned over a few times to see what he was writing, but his chicken scratches are impossible to read, he also uses a fine tip pencil.
This Vanderlinden fellow is an interesting candidate. I like the idea of new blood in the council, and he has the added bonus of sounding coherent, sane and reasonable.
Totally agree with the “having more youth in city government” sentiment. Baby boomers have controlled politics for a generation, but it’s coming time for them to step aside for a new generation to take over.
It’s kinda funny, because before the forum, I introduced myself to Kyle and I warned him that Jamison is a strong candidate, then I said, “A job he inherited from his old man.”
I want my damn street cleaners back!
†. . . and Mr. Staggers we did nothing illegal.â€
I was dragging a smoke when I read this, I coughed up a lung. My first thought was ‘Uh-oh, the gloves gonna be off…’ Huether had the gall to say that to Kermit?! Nothing illegal, my fat hairy ass!
I will gladly pay $20 to see Kermit spray Huether’s ass with lemon Pledge and wipe the floor with him.
ONE MORE example of the lack of openness on the Council occurred Monday night (March 19th) at the 7:00 Council meeting.
The Council has been considering moving their meetings from Mondays to Tuesdays. This decision had been deferred to May 7th to allow potentially as many as four new Councilors to have a vote on the schedule.
Now, suddenly, Councilor Michelle Erpenbach wants the vote to take place April 2nd, just eight days before the election!!
And BTW, she did not even bother to inform the other councilors that she was going to bring this up at Monday’s meeting, in spite of the fact that they had just held a work session four days earlier.
Her reason for the request regards contract approvals. The Council has been approving contracts for months and to-date there have been no issues with timeliness!!! So, WHY is she making this request??!!
Councilor Kenny Anderson Jr. objected. His objections were based on the fact that the Council has not discussed the change with the Minnehaha County Commission who currently hold a joint meeting with the City Council one Monday a month. He also stated that the April 2nd vote would not allow any new Council members to participate in the decision. The vote was 6 to 1 to place it on the April 2nd agenda.
I hope that the Council comes to their senses and votes to once again delay this until the new members are brought on board.
In addition, IT IS TIME FOR SOME NEW LEADERSHIP ON THE COUNCIL!!!
Sue Aguilar is currently Chair of the Council with Erpenbach as Vice-Chair.
These are the two councilors that invited the Mayor into the “Debra Owen situation.” A process that he had no business being involved in!
And, while the seven other councilors “weighed in” on the South Dakota Open Meetings reprimand, Councilor Aguilar “hid out” and expressed no opinion. Now, we have the Vice-Chair, Councilor Erpenbach trying to cut potential new councilors out of the scheduling process!
Does anyone else think it’s time for some new leadership??!!
Uh – Yes, and people wonder why I was ready to vote for the donut guy.
Well, Alice, if you are ‘Pissed Off’ he’s your man 🙂
If I were truly “pissed off,” I wouldn’t vote for any of these people, but I believe in my right to vote and take that seriously so that is not an option.
I got the feeling during the forum that Cory and Dean must have the same speech writer.
People should vote for Kermit for no other reason than to piss off MMM. Sorry Cory.
Mike could start every council meeting by looking at Kermit and saying, “Mr. Staggers, we did nothing illegal.”
I still have not seen any info regarding a League of Women Voters debate…………
Maybe Cory was pissed off because he didn’t read the fine print. “You are running for public office and will be on display to the public and the media. It wouldn’t kill you to wear a suit”.
Fuck, I could stand up there in a Riverdales T-shirt and tell everyone I’m pissed off, too.
CR, I haven’t either, I know there is a debate Monday night at the Holiday Inn, 7 PM.
BJ – I was thinking he should have dawned a ‘Nashville Pussy’ t-shirt, then he could yelled out, “Go Motherf**ker, Go!”
It was pretty funny when he said, ‘Pissed off’ everyone got quiet, I think one person gasped, and everyone was looking down.
The other funny part was how I got accosted when I came in there, a friend made the reservation, and I paid my lunch fee at the door, then all of these CVB people kept asking who I was and why I was there. I almost told them, “Well, why are you here?”
Or on election night, Cory can say “Did I win”, and we’ll all reply in unison “no you stupid boy you just fucked up again!!!”.
BAHAHAHAHA!
Surprised you had time to write this, shouldn’t you be making ‘PIE’
I want to explain why I edited this part of the post;
“figured it had to do with the termination of Debra Owen, but Kermit was puzzled why Mike addressed him about it. Who knows what he was talking about. I guess from now on we must assume everything Mike does is possibly illegal?”
I am also hearing that Mike was not referring to Owen at all, but the deal that the city cooked up with Lloyd and Hegg over the river ramp. IMO, I would agree nothing was illegal, but a big f’ing handout to a private company was pretty blatant. Illegal. Nope. Slippery? All the way to Falls Park.
Cutting infrastructure 23% . . . for the white elephant?!
Explain this to me like I was 6 years old: sewers routinely overflow, city water lines routinely rupture, complaints are rampant about poor roads and bad traffic . . . and they cut infrastructure spending . . . why? I just don’t get it.
huether, craig lloyd, paul hegg, and al schoenemann all weilding sledge hammers in a photo op showing EXACTLY who is about to get hammered. First off, we will eventually have to replace that river ramp. Right now, it is being preliminarily sited between Main and Phillips on 8th street across the street from the Holiday Inn. The PLAN is to displace the 367 parking lot that exists now with a brandy spanky new 878 ramp that WILL cost you and me, the taxpayers, over $10,000,000.00.
Now, for the biggest scam of all. The River Greenway Project. I encourage you all to read this doc.
http://docs.siouxfalls.org/sirepub/cache/2/lrfszuqbrgmojg55x0quva55/16633803252012104139701.PDF
In part, it says this.
Phase One of the Downtown Greenway improvements is currently under construction at a cost of $5.1 million dollars.  Approximately $3.3 million of the Phase One costs will go directly to paying for items that are environmentally related.
The Big Sioux River Environmental Trust Fund was created by Court Order in 1996.  The trust fund currently has a value of approximately $1.9 million dollars.  The City of Sioux Falls is proposing to use the total accumulated dollar amount in the trust fund in combination with City of Sioux Falls approved capital funds for the proposed Phase Two improvements of the Downtown Greenway. The total construction cost for Phase Two will be approximately $3 million dollars.Â
Aside from the Environmental Trust Fund being blown away for the wrong reasons, it was tapped into, COMPLETELY, long before a spade touched the ground for phase two south of 8th street. Seems the 5.1 million didn’t quite cut it for phase 1. Phase 1 is already into us for over 7 million and it’s not even close to complete.
River Greenway Project? Just a microcosm of what we have in store for us in our next white elephant, The Sanford McArena Project.
Poly, you can’t link PDF’s directly on the city website anymore, not sure why, but if you could give us a link to the page before and reference what we need to click on, that would be great. I think I have already read the document though.
This is an example of what Kermit brought up the other day at the CVB forum. We cannot spend more then $115 million, that is what we were promised. But when you look at the River greenway project, you start to scratch your head. I have a feeling naming rights money is going to be flowing into the EC like you would not believe to pay for construction costs.
I also found Beck’s article interesting today about having dinner with (I assume, the Quen Be). That’s nice that someone who is running for council has dinner with the publisher of our local newspaper. I wonder if they hugged also, of if he only hugs the mayor in public at ribbon cuttings. I couldn’t believe he would admit to having dinner with someone running for office, wait, I can believe it, his head is so big that when he meets with the mayor, they have to have two rooms, one for each of their heads.
As for the ‘illegal’ comment by Huether. Still baffled by that. Is that Mike’s new comment when he talks about a new project, “We did nothing illegal.” What a strange little man.
Yeah….I see that link does not work. Try googling Downtown Sioux Falls River Greenway, then clicking on the link dated March 28, 2011.